• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • The Magazine
  • Events
  • Partners
  • Products
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Jobs and Careers
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Subscribe to the Magazine
American Police Beat

American Police Beat Magazine

Law Enforcement Publication

  • Home
  • Editor’s Picks
    • The power of teamwork
      Stay awake and alert on the job
      The worst rank in law enforcement
      Firearms maintenance
      Why fries need salt
  • Topics
    • On the Job
      • Law enforcement agencies prepare for civil unrest following leaked...
        Arizona troopers find nearly 40 pounds of fentanyl pills and cocaine...
        Equipment and training considerations for pistol-mounted optics
        Think of de-escalation as conflict resolution
        Chicago Police Department launches cold-case video series
    • Labor
      • NYPD overtime expected to surpass budget by over $142 million to...
        Portland police shut down cold case unit to reinforce homicide...
        Living in the ashes
        Atlanta mayor wants to hire 450 more police officers to expand...
        Florida sheriff’s office cites recruitment and retention crisis...
    • Tech
      • High-tech policing
        Open-source investigations
        Virginia lawmakers lift ban on the use of facial recognition...
        Iowa State University simulation training module offers de-escalation...
        Law enforcement warns about the dangers of Apple AirTags and unwanted...
    • Training
      • “The hidden danger is the water”
        Weapon retention
        Developing trauma-informed training and drills for K–12 schools
        Crime prevention training
        So you want to be a civilian firearms trainer?
    • Policy
      • Orange County D.A. unveils new PSA against street racing with actors...
        New Jersey revises policy to allow police to engage in car chases...
        DOJ announces online resource center for law enforcement agencies to...
        Florida bill creating election fraud police force becomes law
        New York City subway shooting sheds light on spike in transit crime
    • Health/Wellness
      • What anxiety is — and what not to do about it
        Supporting a partner in crisis
        Spiritual resilience
        Overcoming relationship communication challenges
        How visual simulation training can activate your trauma
    • Community
      • LGBTQ police officers allowed to participate in Denver PrideFest...
        California police department helps pay for families’ groceries as a...
        “I thought he was going to die”: 6-year-old calls police to save...
        Treated like royalty
        Dispatchers: The unsung heroes
    • Offbeat
      • Maine police arrest man hiding under a blanket in ghost disguise
        Texas burglar mows the lawn before fleeing police
        Drone flying bag of handguns across the U.S.-Canada border gets stuck...
        Receding water levels in Lake Mead uncover barrel containing a dead...
        Pet duck helps North Carolina police solve murder mystery
    • We Remember
      • A living legacy
        Not in vain
        Honoring Fallen Heroes
        Florida law enforcement, legislators weigh whether to classify...
        National Law Enforcement Museum offers free Saturday admission for...
  • On the Job
    • Law enforcement agencies prepare for civil unrest following leaked...
      Arizona troopers find nearly 40 pounds of fentanyl pills and cocaine...
      Equipment and training considerations for pistol-mounted optics
      Think of de-escalation as conflict resolution
      Chicago Police Department launches cold-case video series
  • Labor
    • NYPD overtime expected to surpass budget by over $142 million to...
      Portland police shut down cold case unit to reinforce homicide...
      Living in the ashes
      Atlanta mayor wants to hire 450 more police officers to expand...
      Florida sheriff’s office cites recruitment and retention crisis...
  • Tech
    • High-tech policing
      Open-source investigations
      Virginia lawmakers lift ban on the use of facial recognition...
      Iowa State University simulation training module offers de-escalation...
      Law enforcement warns about the dangers of Apple AirTags and unwanted...
  • Training
    • “The hidden danger is the water”
      Weapon retention
      Developing trauma-informed training and drills for K–12 schools
      Crime prevention training
      So you want to be a civilian firearms trainer?
  • Policy
    • Orange County D.A. unveils new PSA against street racing with actors...
      New Jersey revises policy to allow police to engage in car chases...
      DOJ announces online resource center for law enforcement agencies to...
      Florida bill creating election fraud police force becomes law
      New York City subway shooting sheds light on spike in transit crime
  • Health/Wellness
    • What anxiety is — and what not to do about it
      Supporting a partner in crisis
      Spiritual resilience
      Overcoming relationship communication challenges
      How visual simulation training can activate your trauma
  • Community
    • LGBTQ police officers allowed to participate in Denver PrideFest...
      California police department helps pay for families’ groceries as a...
      “I thought he was going to die”: 6-year-old calls police to save...
      Treated like royalty
      Dispatchers: The unsung heroes
  • Offbeat
    • Maine police arrest man hiding under a blanket in ghost disguise
      Texas burglar mows the lawn before fleeing police
      Drone flying bag of handguns across the U.S.-Canada border gets stuck...
      Receding water levels in Lake Mead uncover barrel containing a dead...
      Pet duck helps North Carolina police solve murder mystery
  • We Remember
    • A living legacy
      Not in vain
      Honoring Fallen Heroes
      Florida law enforcement, legislators weigh whether to classify...
      National Law Enforcement Museum offers free Saturday admission for...
  • Between the Lines
    • Persecution of the LEO is Classic Schadenfreude
      The Rule of Law is Worthless Without Order
      School policing: a paradox of the defund movement
      Defending the honor of the LE profession – finally!
      The dichotomy of the defund movement: reality setting in
  • About
  • The Magazine
  • Events
  • Partners
  • Products
  • Advertise
  • Contact
Search

Training

Practice what you suck at!

Todd Fletcher Published July 3, 2021 @ 6:00 am PDT

Another skill we may need to improve is reloading while holding a handheld flashlight. (Combative Firearms Training, LLC)

It’s time to go to the range for some firearms training. When you get there, you get everything loaded, set up your choice of targets, and throw on your eye and ear protection. Now, what are you going to practice?

You have a choice to make: Do you practice the things you’re good at, or do you train to improve your weaknesses? Are you going to spend time sending rounds downrange for recreation, or are you serious about improving your performance? Everyone likes to practice doing the things we’re good at. It makes us feel good about ourselves. But let’s be honest: We should really be working to improve our weaknesses. That’s why we should be practicing the skills we suck at.

Training

Most officers don’t shoot a lot of rounds and even fewer go to the range to practice on their own time. This means when we do make time to practice, we need to work on polishing our skills and improving our weaknesses. This is what training is all about.

Training [trey-ning]: to develop or form habits, thoughts or behavior by discipline and instruction.

The skills I’m talking about are ones we all need to improve, regardless of how good we think we are. This article is part confessional, part callout to every police officer who thinks they are prepared and part challenge to firearms instructors to do better. I’m including my own training and skill set in this article, so if you’re offended, get over it. I’m as guilty of this as anyone. There are skills I need to commit to working on to be better than I was yesterday.

Training discipline means each round we fire has intent and purpose. Each draw from the holster is done with the expectation that our life and the lives of our loved ones depend on it. Training can be fun, but the primary purpose of training is not recreation or entertainment. The primary goal is performance improvement.

When training, we arrive at the range with a game plan focused on what we’re going to do to improve, and with the determination to accomplish those goals. The intent should be to enhance skills and perform to higher standards. We need to know what we’re going to work on and have the self-control to stay focused on those objectives. Especially when we’re working on difficult skills, it’s easy to lose focus and fall back into practicing the stuff at which we already excel.

Practicing malfunction clearance techniques with a handheld flashlight may be an important skill during your career. (Combative Firearms Training, LLC)

Training means knowing when it’s time to seek professional instruction in order to push our personal limits to get better, faster and more accurate. A second set of eyes can help identify weaknesses and target those skills we need to work on to improve. Even if we know what our weaknesses are, most of us aren’t self-aware enough to identify when those weaknesses pop up.

A quality firearms instructor can help diagnose and correct our mistakes so we can work on improving our skills outside of class. In other words, we don’t always know what we don’t know. Instructors can help bring previously unknown weaknesses to light so we can work to turn them into strengths.

If you’re a firearms instructor, this article is directed specifically at you. Instructors need to seek other professional instructors to help them improve as shooters and trainers. As shooters, we may not be aware of some of the “gremlins” that can creep into our own skill set. Another instructor can improve our shooting skill by observing what we do and how we do it. The feedback they provide will make us better, providing we can set aside our ego and accept their critique. Quality training will help us out as shooters and provide us with additional ideas and tools to help build our own students. As an instructor, if you’re looking for a new or different way to present information or design courses of fire, take a class from another instructor. It’s a great way to recharge your batteries and get motivated all over again.

What to work on

When looking for specific skills to work on, instead of practicing your same old routine, think about the skills you’ve avoided practicing on a regular basis. Let’s start with one-hand shooting. How frequently do you practice shooting with your strong hand only? How about with your support hand only?
Confession time: I’m pretty good shooting strong-hand-only, but I kinda suck with just my support hand. It’s one of the reasons why I call it my “stupid” hand. Therefore, I have made the commitment to practice at least some support-hand-only drills every time I train.

How often do you practice drawing and reloading using your support hand only? Yup. That’s what I thought.

How often do you practice drawing and reloading using your support hand only? Yup. That’s what I thought. It was easier before we started wearing external vest carriers. It was also a lot easier before I hit the 20-year mark of my career. It’s true that I got a little thicker around the waist, but age also affects our flexibility. My shoulders and back don’t move like they used to, so drawing support-hand-only has become more challenging. Regardless of the reason, we better start practicing those skills on a regular basis, lest we let down the ones we love.

Shooting from a variety of awkward positions is another skill set most of us need to improve. Instead of standing in front of a target in our best range ninja stance, how about drawing, shooting, reloading and clearing malfunctions from truly awkward positions? These positions inhibit our ability to breathe easily, destabilize our shooting platform and challenge our ability to make accurate shots. Think about using a street curb as cover, and you’re getting an idea of what I mean.

Do you practice regularly under time duress? Time is a precious commodity and is in short supply when lives are in danger. For years, there have been law enforcement firearms instructors who fail to use a stopwatch or shot timer in training. I’ve heard them explain, “There’s no stopwatch or shot timer in a gunfight.” This is complete BS. There absolutely is a stopwatch and a shot timer in a gunfight, and they are being run by the threat! The shot timer is objective and will tell you how well you’re performing. If you’re slow to recognize a threat, it will tell you. If your draw or presentation time is slow, it will tell you. It may not tell the whole story, but it won’t lie to you just to make you feel better about yourself.

Practice shooting from a variety of awkward shooting positions. On the street, a small piece of cover or concealment may be your best fighting position. (Combative Firearms Training, LLC)

Another skill set most of us could improve is shooting with a flashlight in our hands. For the past 15 years or so, I’ve seen more and more officers with weapon-mounted lights on their handguns. This is a good thing. However, when working in low light, officers almost always have a handheld flashlight in hand. Depending on context, being able to draw and fight with a flashlight in hand could be an important skill. In the middle of a gunfight, I can’t think of a good reason to toss away a perfectly good light to transition to a weapon-mounted light.

Shooting and operating a handgun alongside a handheld flashlight is fundamentally like shooting with one hand. Most of us aren’t very good shooting strong-hand-only during the day. How much worse are we going to be at night with a flashlight in our hands if we don’t get significant practice time to master the techniques?

If you sincerely want to improve your skills, you need to get serious about training. We don’t know what we don’t know. But I do know that we owe it to our loved ones to be as prepared as possible. If we let our egos get in the way during training, we will fail those we love most. Maintain your strengths, but own your weaknesses. If we don’t, we will fail to practice the skills we suck at.

Combative Firearms Training, LLC
Todd Fletcher

Todd Fletcher

Todd Fletcher is a retired sergeant from central Oregon with over 25 years of law enforcement experience. He presents firearms training, instructor certification and instructor development classes nationwide. He owns Combative Firearms Training, LLC, providing firearms training, handgun and patrol rifle instructor certification, and instructor development classes to law enforcement, military and private security. He can be contacted at Todd@CombativeFirearms.com. 

View articles by Todd Fletcher

As seen in the June 2021 issue of American Police Beat magazine.
Don’t miss out on another issue today! Click below:

SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

Categories: Training Tags: Police, Law Enforcement, firearms, training, habits

Primary Sidebar

Recent Articles

  • Law enforcement agencies prepare for civil unrest following leaked Supreme Court opinion on Roe v. Wade
  • Maine police arrest man hiding under a blanket in ghost disguise
  • Texas burglar mows the lawn before fleeing police
  • Drone flying bag of handguns across the U.S.-Canada border gets stuck in tree
  • Arizona troopers find nearly 40 pounds of fentanyl pills and cocaine hidden in unicorn backpack
  • “The hidden danger is the water”
  • NYPD overtime expected to surpass budget by over $142 million to combat crime
  • Equipment and training considerations for pistol-mounted optics
  • LGBTQ police officers allowed to participate in Denver PrideFest parade after last year’s ban
  • Receding water levels in Lake Mead uncover barrel containing a dead body; police expect more to come

Footer

Our Mission
To serve as a trusted voice of the nation’s law enforcement community, providing informative, entertaining and inspiring content on interesting and engaging topics affecting peace officers today.

Contact us: info@apbweb.com

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

Categories

  • Editor’s Picks
  • On the Job
  • Labor
  • Tech
  • Training
  • Policy
  • Health/Wellness
  • Community
  • Offbeat
  • We Remember
  • Jobs and Careers
  • Events

Editor’s Picks

The power of teamwork

The power of teamwork

July 23, 2021

Stay awake and alert on the job

Stay awake and alert on the job

July 20, 2021

The worst rank in law enforcement

The worst rank in law enforcement

July 19, 2021

Firearms maintenance

Firearms maintenance

July 04, 2021

Privacy Policy | Copyright © 2022 APB Media, LLC | Website design, development and maintenance by 911MEDIA

Open

Subscribe

Close
Receive the latest news and updates from American Police Beat directly to your inbox!
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.