I agree it is a necessary skill but a couple of things I've seen:
- Some people never progress beyond a slow walk
- Students sometimes don't learn the application of "when" to do it
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I agree it is a necessary skill but a couple of things I've seen:
- Some people never progress beyond a slow walk
- Students sometimes don't learn the application of "when" to do it
Thanks for the replies gents! Lots of great info and ideas.
Just for clarification, moving off of the line of attack while drawing from the holster, and during all other weapon manipulations other than shooting is a regularly trained skill for me.
My main objective for posting this was to gather ideas on how, or whether or not to include a shooting on the move portion into my departments future training curriculum for patrol. I think setting up a scenario using a humanoid target that replicates a shoot/no-shoot scenario on a traffic stop while moving to available cover might be a good start.
Last edited by nickdrak; 01-30-11 at 06:09.
Just a comment on this, as I've come to have a bit of a different perspective on things from running the drills nights. Shooting on the move as done at your typical shooting class is more complicated than it may seem from the outside looking in.
First there are some things which should be obvious, like the fact that most classes are not there to teach "tactics" so application of SOM (or as I call it, moving while shooting, more on that below) is not the point but rather to introduce the technique and give shooters a chance to practice it. No matter what the pre-reqs are for a class, people step in that might not be ready for the class. Unfortunately the class defaults to the ability of the least experienced shooter.
Given that, the line can only move at the speed that the slowest shooter moves. Yes, it is up to the instructor to push that guy to speed up, but at some point there is a guy that just won't, or can't, go any faster. Since most often it's "won't" and not "can't" you hit a brick wall at a point where the line can only move so fast. For skill development it's good to get people to move as fast as they can to push themselves, and having each shooter do MwS alone instead of on the line is beneficial in this regard but also horribly time consuming.
Then you have a given instructor's level of acceptable accuracy. Some will insist on that same standard even while MwS and others will acknowledge that the group size will grow. The problem, IMHO, is the other guys, the ones that start out with "combat acceptable hits" standing still and wind up barely hitting the target when MwS, but that's another subject.
Finally, there are some of the hidden lessons. One of the big ones is situational awareness. Most shooters have none. and I'm not even talking SA on a large scale, I'm just talking about the most basic of knowing where the guy to your right and left are in relation to your own position. Breaking out of that tunnel vision is a new thing for most shooters. Hell, shooting while standing on their hind legs might be new. Then you add MwS, and then you ask them to be aware of their immediate surroundings.
I'll stop rambling now, but will say that I think you can figure out what we might be working on at drills this Tuesday.![]()
I've taken a 3 hrs shooting while moving class and it was eye opening, I'm planning on attending a one day shooting while moving class in July that I'm really looking forward to.
type 2 operator
Rob,
I arrived at the same conclusion you did regarding SA. I had much better results letting first timers do it alone so they can work on their accuracy then with a partner. Ease them into it without overloading their capabilities.
The first time I did it we were on-line with about 20 students. The instructors were constantly yelling "stay on line" so everyone was concentrating on that and nobody was able to focus on accurate hits.
I've seen many, supposedly "practical" courses-of-fire that required the shooter to shoot on the move, but which were set up in a way that demanded and rewarded "groucho walking" slowly in order to attain the accuracy demanded to accomplish the exercise. Personally, I can't imagine waddling slowly along if under fire or deadly threat. Moving fast--as fast as one can--would seem to be indicated and, frankly, would be hard to not do.
One isn't going to shoot as accurately when hauling ass as when doing the groucho game-walk. Depending on the distance and target background, maybe shooting isn't indicated until reaching cover. In a situation where I don't need to concern myself about the background, I may throw a few shots in the direction of the threat(s) while moving as fast as I can. If I hit, great! If I don't, well maybe I made him duck or flinch.
At conversational distances, one can move fast and hit well with practice. This is the distance at which most pistol fights are likely to occur and I would opine that being able to hit with moving quickly at these ranges is a critical skill and well worth the training time to inculcate it.
Rosco
Last edited by Rosco Benson; 01-30-11 at 09:53.
Shooting on the move and getting good hits(A and B zones) is challenging, not impossible, and with practice one can get much better. LAV can absolutely fu** it up shooting on the move. Are we all LAV? Of course not, but it illustrates that with practice it is an acquireable skill. Is there a good reason for practicing it? In my opinion that counts for squat except for me, yes. I formed my opinion while listening to TigerSwan instructors as well as LAV explain the reasoning behind why it may be necessary. Grant hit some good points on this. Maybe I need to back away quickly so as to be able to get away from an immediate contact threat(knife) and employ my weapon to stop the threat. Possibly I need to shoot while moving to cover. Scenarios are endless. I see shooting on the move well as an absolutely essential skill that is completely attainable. This is why I practice it. I expect one day to become proficient.
Last edited by 6933; 01-30-11 at 11:13. Reason: spellin'
Last April I participated in an Intermediate Defensive Handgun class at Insights here in Washington that involved some moving and hitting at pretty short ranges. One of the drills that really sticks out started at conversational distance (~3 yards or so I believe) in an interview type situation and involved moving offline while drawing and circling left or right (we did it several times both ways) while getting A zone hits on a negative target. Most of the class was capable of doing quite well at this so I agree it is both doable and valuable.
Last edited by BrianS; 01-30-11 at 18:17.
No, just working on the skill of moving and shooting in and of itself. What do you mean by background problems? Roleplayers or something? This was all live fire. I hope to take Street and Vehicle Tactics with them sometime, which is more about roleplaying and looking at various self defense scenarios.
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