AAR - Your Competition Handgun Training Program

[Direct Action Tactical]

This is an AAR for the "Your Competition Handgun Training Program" with Mike Seeklander held at the Palmyra Sportsman's Association June 3rd, 4th and 5th. This class is a complimentary program designed around the training book Mike wrote by the same title. The entire program is a radical departure from the typical "technique" class that you receive from many of the shooting pro's out there. While you do receive a TON of technique from Mike, more importantly this entire system is designed to help train you how to "PROPERLY" train yourself.

The training was conducted over two and half days. There were seven students in the course that represented a wide spread of skill levels and shooting disciplines. The breakdown of students did lean towards IDPA with skill levels from novice to master, with a few USPSA shooters in the mix.

Classroom Session - Friday evening consisted of a 3 hour classroom session. During this training, Mike covered the finer point of his book and explained in great detail the various aspects of the mental game. We covered goal setting, active and passive visualization, mental preparation, mental conditioning and visual training. Mike is a very articulate, detailed instructor and he really took the time to ensure that everyone understood the topics he was covering. No one enjoys the "Classroom / PowerPoint" portion of any class, but Mike did a good job of making it manageable. For all of us who have shot competition for any length of time, you know that the mental game is HUGE and this instruction was a valuable component that set the stage for the rest of the class.

Day 1 AM - We started off the morning with a wide variety of dry fire drills. In fact we did not fire a live round until after lunch. I know right now some of you are reading this and saying "WHAT?" This portion of the class was actually one of the most beneficial for me. Mike's dry-fire drills and methodologies really provide a structure where so many of us often lack a clear purpose and direction. The drills focus on all aspects of the draw process, including multiple hand positions, pivoting, stepping and draw transfers. The second skill that is covered deeply in dry fire drills are reloads. Mike demo's EVERY drill he teaches and while running students through these drills he is in fact throwing out a technique class to the shooters. We worked the three phases of the dry fire program. These include the TTS (Technical Training Speed) these are reps while maintaining PERFECT technique. The second part is MTTS (Maximum Technical Training Speed) where you perform the skill as fast as possible while maintaining correct form. The final phase is where you "Catch the Timer," in this portion you drop the par time to push you beyond your MTTS. We all pulled literally thousands of dry fire reps in the morning and were eager for some trigger time in the afternoon.

DAY 1 PM - During the afternoon we loaded up ad started the live fire portion of the class. We performed the drills that Mike calls his "Micro Drills" The drills are simple to perform and reinforce many of the skills that we began training in the dry-fire portion. The Micro Drills include the basic physical skills such as the draw and simple movements (pivots & steps) but add the all important "firing cycle." One important thing to note about the live fire portion of Mike's training program is that it requires very LITTLE in the way of props. In fact you can do almost every drill in the book with a couple of target stands and some targets. We finished out Day 1 with a one shot competition drill, Mike fired a shot into the target from 5 yards and then we all took turns trying to stack our round through the same hole.

Day 2 - On the second training day we picked up right where we had left off. During the course of this training day we covered the "Macro Drills" that Mike trains on. Macro drills differ from Micro drills in that they include multiple skill sets combined into one drill. The great part of the Macro drills are that they require a definite mental component. By having a large number of things happening within a single drill Mike was able to create simple drills that require a shooter to use visualization and mental planning. I have never found simple drills that so easily replicate the mental aspect of stage management within a match. One other key point in the program for both the Macro and Micro drills is the concept of alternating target zones (body / head). Mike makes the point that inch for inch they are virtually identical in size, but it is the risk, reward, game between the two zones that causes shooters to stress the head shots. Mike pushes the shooters to stop thinking in negative terms with tighter, higher risk shots like head and steel, but instead just thinking of them as a body shot further away.

Final Thoughts - This class is quite unique in many different ways and sets a shooter on a path to properly manage his or her personal training program. It also accounts for shooters in a wide variety of skill levels. Mike, who is a Nationally ranked Grand Master, uses this program for his training. Far too often we do not take a systematic approach to our competition training and do not track our progress. Then we wonder why we are not improving (I know that song, LOL)? If this sounds like you or you are just looking for a little more structure and direction in your training program then do yourself a favor and check out this class.

You can check out Mike's program and get further details at his website www.shooting-performance.com

[Pkspawn]

Thanks for posting this review of the course. I just shot an email out to the contact for the South Jersey location.

After seeing my scores for this past weekends match. I need to be practicing more outside of the matches .