That would be the best way I could describe the time we had at Blackwater, courtesy of ParaUSA. Everyone who was there learned something new about their shooting, and learned how to shoot better. If I was giving out a “Most Improved Shooter” award, I would give it to Robb Allen, who by paying attention to Todd Jarrett went from shooting a weaver stance to smoking the bejesus out of both Joe Huffman and me in the shoot house on Day 3. And I don’t mean that “Most Improved” as a slight, he was literally light years better on Day 3 than he was on Day 1.
I learned so much – so many little things that I’m doing that I need to do differently to bring my shooting up to that next level. At all the local matches I’ve been going to lately, I’ve felt like I’m missing a little component to bring myself into the next tier – after spending a weekend learning from Todd Jarrett, I’ve realized a lot of the stuff that I was doing wasn’t so much “wrong” as it was “not as efficient”.
To elaborate further, one of his big things is “hang on to the gun tighter”, and he would tell all the shooters to grip the gun “20% tighter” – when I would do that, my follow-up shots on steel targets and paper would be light-years faster. He also told me to get more of my weight forward on my feet, and when I look at videos of me shooting steel and IDPA, I can see exactly what he’s talking about. I was tending to sit back too much on my heels, which made my follow-up shots not as fast as they could be.
In terms of my shooting knowledge, I learned more this weekend that I had learned in the last 8 years of shooting, my Coast Guard training included in that. Todd Jarrett is a fantastic instructor, his ability to manage the different skill levels of his class was outstanding, as was his ability to tailor the message for each individual shooter.
I’ll have more content up tomorrow morning, once I get all my videos and pictures uploaded to the blog.
