This series is written for folks who wish to know what they need to practice in order to hone themselves into better shooters:
Getting started | Dry-fire practice

OK, let's get started with some specific drills for you to conduct when engaging in live- and dry-fire practice. If you're reading this, I assume that you already have made the decision on what type of holster and ancillary equipment you will be using — including what discipline of competition you will be engaging in if that is your objective.

Go to your area of dry fire and put your gear on. For every competitive shooting organization as well as most concealed-carry students, the holster should be placed on the shooting side hip in the area of the point of the hip bone. The same general rule applies for the magazine pouches on the support side of the body.

The first thing that needs to be perfected is the draw. Wearing your gear just as you normally would wear it, you should be able to access your pistol using a hand and arm motion only. Some concealed-carry handgun (CCH) rigs require users to slightly lean to the support side in order to draw cleanly. If you have one of those, you need to be cognizant of that fact from the beginning.

I use the "KISS" principal when it comes to the draw — four steps and four steps only: grip, clear, center and extend.

Taking these four steps one at a time, I achieve my master shooting grip while the gun is still in the holster. This means I disable any securing devices simultaneously with acquiring my shooting grip. A lot of shooters will make this one step a two-step process, but that is time consuming and flat-out wrong.

After the master grip is achieved, the handgun is lifted clear of the holster and immediately pointed toward the target. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and that means the pistol should not be aimed toward the ground or the sky when clear of the holster.

Now the pistol is brought to roughly the center line of the body, and both hands come together at this juncture. Last, but not least, the handgun with a two-hand grip is extended toward the target while the shooter is attempting to acquire the front sight in his line of sight.

Here is my recommendation for proper practice of the draw: Have a definite aiming point in your dry-fire area and start out slowly, making sure you are doing each of the four steps properly. For example, as the dominant hand goes to the pistol, the support hand should be coming to the center line of the body in order to "catch" the shooting hand as the pistol is centered.

The more things you can do comfortably at once, the faster you'll become. To quote Brian Enos, "speed is simply the economy of motion." After getting relatively comfortable with these four steps, break out that shot timer.

Set your timer at two seconds par time for beginners and your start button on either random or three-second delay. Press start, and at the sound of the buzzer attempt to have your pistol lined up on your target area with a clear view of your front sight and a clean dry-fire "click" by the time the two-second beep is sounded. As you get better and better, simply bring down your par times on the shot timer.

Do not just snatch out the pistol and jerk on the trigger, but actually try to keep the front sight from moving and press through on the trigger. This should get you started on having a fast, clean draw including an accurate first shot on target.

Lastly, set up your video camera and record your draw, then go back and review and see where you can improve.

Until next time, have fun and be safe.