I recently had the opportunity to spend a week training with a submachine gun. Throughout the week the lesson that was most prevalent was that we were training to live. The instructors were first rate and very knowledgeable. Each of us had trained in the past with a “range” mentality. It was very evident as we sat back and pondered the question, “how many of you still have loaded magazines for your long guns”? None of the students had any magazines loaded for the submachine gun that they were shooting that day, yet several of us had a pocket full of rounds for the gun. See we each had a range mentality. That first day was the last day that I did not have all my magazines loaded constantly. Our instructors kept telling us to bring the street to the range. What they meant was to train just like we were on the street and had to use our weapons. As I pondered the question asked of us students, I began to realize that as range instructors and trainers, the greatest disservice we do to our student is to allow them develop a range mentality when they train with firearms. There is an old adage that you fight the way you train. No truer words were ever uttered. I realized that my own training and the training I give to my students has to change. I have to develop training that is real world and very realistic. How many times have we been to a range where everyone is in a straight static line and does nothing until specifically told to do so. How many times have we been trained to raise our hand on the firing line when we have a malfunction? This sort of training is what will kill us in a real gunfight. We must train as if we are really in the fight of our lives when we are on the range. We must be safe, but we must train as if we are on the street. We must train to live.

Bookmark to:

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 12:14 am and is filed under training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.