By James Queisner, Gunsite

Many times, while teaching at Gunsite, I get asked how often a person should be training to not only stay sharp, but to build on the skills they as student has just learned.  While I wish there was a perfect and easy answer of “shoot this many times and this many rounds and you will always be sharp and ready”, that just is not reality.   Skills related to the use of a handgun or rifle are perishable.  Just like when you achieve a level of fitness, you must continue working out to keep it at that level.  Then, if you want to increase your skill level, you have to push yourself even harder.

Let me help illustrate this for you.  We all remember, way back in high school, when we had to take the dreaded foreign language class of our choice. For me it was Spanish.  After taking the class, off into the real world I went, never using it in any meaningful way.  To this day, other than the common everyday words, the only words in Spanish I remember are lechuga and cebolla, which is Spanish for lettuce and onion, the two things I hate on my cheeseburgers, which probably explains why I remember it.  All kidding aside, when you don’t use a skill you lose much, if not all of it, which when it comes to the use of a firearm is extremely problematic.  Even more if you are using this firearm in the defense of yourself of another.

So how do you prevent this from happening? First get a good solid base for your first organized training.  The first training you get is what you remember the most and it provides the foundation on what every other training is layered on.  Now, when you are building that initial base, make sure it is training constructed in the fundamentals of marksmanship.  Those fundamentals are really what make your foundation strong and able to be there for you to build upon.  I was so blessed that my first formal training was the police academy, which had been based on the modern pistol technique that Colonel Copper first established.

Keeping the base you have built and keeping it sharp can be done in several ways.  Making yourself get to the range consistently is the biggest part.  Now, getting to the range is only part of it.  Once you are there, it is important to get in good quality repetitions that build on the shooting skills you have learned.  It is also important to work on the skills that we struggle with and not just the ones we are great at.  Shooting head shots at 3 yards may impress ourselves and can be done consistently with little effort or practice.  However, you need to practice the not-so-fun skills so you can be a well-balanced shooter.

If you find yourself asking, “what could I possibly need to work on?”  When did you last practice malfunctions or support hand only shooting.  The skills we struggle with are what we don’t want to do because its hard and we have to work at it to get better, which makes it even more important to push those items to the top of our training plan.

Ok, so now we are maintaining our skills, making it to the range as much as we can, and working on the skills we struggle with, but we want to get even sharper in our shooting skills.  The first suggestion I would give is to take the next level class in your trusted training academy.  Upper-level courses will challenge you with things like tighter time restrictions, multiple targets, and maybe even force on force training where you can apply your shooting skills against another human who can now move and react and force you to engage your brain and not just your trigger finger.

Another way to make your skills even sharper is by participating in all the shooting sports/competitions and club events that are exploding in popularity.  There is something that clicks inside all of us when we add a timer, along with competition against others, that give us that added stress forcing us to get better.  You need to remember competition shooting is a different skill set then defensive shooting, but that added stress is what helps to keep you and your skills sharp.

So, unlike Grandma’s Cookies, there is no secret recipe to staying sharp.  It comes down to consistently getting to the range for good quality practice time.” 

So, unlike Grandma’s Cookies, there is no secret recipe to staying sharp.  It comes down to consistently getting to the range for good quality practice time.  Then find ways that challenge you as a shooter and push you out of your comfort zone to make you better. Stay sharp and when are you coming to Gunsite?

About The Author

James Queisner

A Gunsite instructor since 2020, James is a retired police officer of 23 years for various agencies in the Denver metro area. During his career in law enforcement, he held various assignments including serving on SWAT, the Emergency Response Team (Riot Control), as well as teaching firearms for the police academy.  Since retiring from law enforcement James continues to work in the firearms industry, as well as writing for various firearms related publications.

Thank you, Gunsite for being a .50 Caliber Sponsor!