Defensive Shooting

I like to think that I am fairly competent as a defensive shooter. At least I am when I am on a range tossing lead at a bad guy made of paper. Seriously, not once has that dude shot back at me or left that place in anything other than a black trash bag. I say that preety much prove I am one heck of a warrior.

Not convinced? Strange.

Ok, so perhaps that proves nothing. There probably isn't a real definitive way to prove such a thing unless one has been in an actual gun fight or had some more realistic scenario based training. Air soft or some other kind of force on force set up. As of yet I have not had the opportunity to do anything like that, so I have to work with what I can do, what I do have access to. For me right now that is paper targets. So, how can I make my limited training work for me?

One thing John constantly says in training is to visualiz being anywhere but the range. See yourself in the parking lot or the dark ally or anywhere but "here", here being the range in Culpeper. Over the past year I have tried to up that idea. I try to actually picture a place I am, what the bad guy looks like and what his body does after the first shot.

For example, if I am at the range I close my eyes for a minute and think if he aka bad guy is coming from behind me or from the side at full speed or perhaps he is casually walking by me and then quickly comes at me. Then I think of my response to that and I shoot. Most of the time with me eyes open. Just kidding. I always open my eyes, take a breath and make sure I am paying attention to where I am and what I am doing.

The thing about shooting a piece of paper is that there is no reaction from it. If I do the classic two to the heart, one to the head thing it's always a hit. However in real life when I shoot the guy in the chest 2 times his head might flop forward or to the side and it just might not be conveniently stable in one place as I try to blow through his ocular window. When I shoot the target at the range I try in that split second or ideally much less between shots to see in my mind how the body could react to the hit and how I can best respond.

If I see his head flop to the left side, my shot goes to the left side and lower because that is where his head actual is, at least in my mind. Of course, that means the shot will hit the dreaded white part of the target and everyone at the range thinks you suck, but it has been a useful way for me to build skills or so I think. I am 100% perfect in my mind.