Can Competition and Tactics Co-exist?

The dichotomy between competition and tactics within the practical-shooting fraternity has existed since the inception of IPSC at the Columbia Conference. There, Colonel Cooper unilaterally declared “walk and draw” holsters with tiedowns as “apparatum non grata.” It blossomed into the “Martial Artist” versus “Gamesman” argument in the early 80’s and became a motivating, seminal factor in the creation of IDPA.

Today there are segments within the sphere of competition shooters who perceive the tactical crowd as fantasy-world residents who can’t shoot well enough to be competitors. Likewise there are segments within the tactical-oriented group who perceive competition as a petri dish of bad habits sure to get you killed on the street.

That being the case, when I saw Rob Leatham, arguably the greatest competitive shooter in the world, was teaching a class at Thunder Ranch with Clint Smith, plausibly the greatest tactical trainer in existence, I just had to enroll. My occasionally-fertile imagination just couldn’t visualize the two of them collaborating. Stan Lee couldn’t have scripted a better conflicting-super-hero scenario. Their backgrounds, philosophies and temperaments just seemed irreconcilable.
I was wrong.

Storming Through

The class was titled “The Perfect Storm” and Clint began the three day curriculum with the comment, “The ultimate competition is to survive a fight,” which set the scene for their alliance. He continued, “The truth is that mediocrity will probably win most gun fights, but you’ve got to be excellent in order to perform mediocre under pressure.” He made it clear that during the class he would stay in the realm of tactics and Rob would provide the instruction on how to attain greater “excellence” with a handgun. For the three day program, Rob conducted the shooting instruction with help from Jason Burton, while Clint administered the “Terminator,” his two-storied shoot house.

Rob initiated the class by saying, “The worst thing my generation ever did to new shooters was to tell them to focus on the front sight, pin the trigger to the rear when they break the shot and then slowly ease it out until they feel and hear the disconnector engage.” Desecrating conventional wisdom is a sure way to get everyone’s attention.

He followed with, “Releasing the trigger slowly ruins accuracy if you’re trying to shoot fast.” He formed a letter “V” with his index and middle finger and said it represented the amount of muzzle rise distance with each shot. He explained a slow release of the trigger insures the muzzle will reach maximum height before you commence compressing the trigger for the follow up shot. Getting your finger off the trigger quickly allows for pressure to be re-applied to the trigger before the muzzle reaches terminal upward movement. Therefore, according to Rob, one of the secrets to fast shooting isn’t to pull the trigger quickly, it’s to let go of the trigger quickly! “The time from ‘bang’ to ‘click’ should be half as long as from ‘click’ to ‘bang.’” Having not been valedictorian of my class I had to stop and cogitate on that maxim for a few moments.

Jason ran the class thru a trigger manipulation training drill following the commands “Touch, Press, Wall, Break, Release.” The objective was to fire the pistol immediately on the command, “Break,” without moving the sights. At the conclusion Rob said in his case, “Break and Release” were one movement, not two.

“The hardest thing to learn how to do is to pull directly all the way through the trigger,” Rob said as we began the next trigger manipulation drill. This one was designed to get “Touch” through “Release” to be one continuous, smooth stroke. It’s much easier to describe than to execute. When you’re thinking about getting your finger off the trigger quickly (in half the time it took to pull the trigger) it complicates the process of smoothly pulling through the entire stroke without moving the gun.

I had the feeling I wasn’t the only one feeling some personal frustration at the difficulty of the drill. Rob concluded the exercise by saying, “The best device to learn to master the trigger is a double/single action auto or a revolver.” I had heard Clint express a similar conviction in the past. The ultimate Tactician and consummate Competitor were on the same page!

Co-Teaching

Having taken multiple classes from Clint, I had a pretty clear understanding of his modus operandi of training. Although I met Rob in 1983 when he won his very first US National Championship, I had never taken instruction from him. I just knew his personality to be quite different than Clint’s and couldn’t imagine a ying and yang relationship on the range-deck. Again —I was wrong.

According to his website, among other milestones, Rob’s won the Bianchi Cup 11 times, been the IPSC World Champion eight times and the USPSA National Champion 30 times. What blindsided me was how truly gifted an instructor Rob is. He appears freewheeling and improvisational, but he is in fact quite systemic. He’d usually begin a teaching module with some sort of an unconventional statement such as, “Hold on tight, point at the target and jerk the trigger appropriately to hit the target.”

He would then follow that with a near-miraculous demonstration and summarize by asking questions instead of pontificating. Socratic teaching (provoking thought by asking questions instead of providing information) is not typical in the gun-world and he’s a master at asking questions. He would then have the relay shoot a specific drill while he walked the line analyzing everyone’s performance.

At the conclusion of the drill, he’d work with one specific shooter while the rest of the relay gathered around to listen and learn. This coaching conformed more to the scenario of a Fraternity rush chairman hazing a pledge with a smile on his face than a Parris Island Drill Instructor “motivating” a recruit. His coaching is light and humorous but blunt. This results in the student being put on the spot and forced to perform under pressure which is a fact of life in both combative and competitive shooting.

If anyone has earned the right to a well-deserved vanity, it’s Leatham. Nevertheless Rob projects a self-effacing cockiness which sounds oxymoronic. The reality is he’s so good he feels no need to rub your nose in it. By comparison, Clint is a Marine Corps veteran of the Viet Nam war and a Purple Heart recipient with a definite military tenor to his persona. Clint is deadly serious regarding the use of good tactics to survive and Rob is deadly serious regarding good trigger manipulation and grip in order to shoot well quickly. Where Clint is like Winston Churchill being portrayed by R. Lee Emery, Rob is like John Wick being portrayed by Jimmy Fallon. In both cases interacting with them leaves you enlightened and with somewhere between a grin and a belly laugh. Fun, but deadly serious.

Conestoga Vs. Space Shuttle

When relays would rotate from Rob’s firing line to Clint’s shoot-house, students would have pristine “Robisms” ringing in their ears. “I grip the pistol hard at the beginning and increase it as I go.” And, “A clear focus on the front sight needs to only be accurate enough to assure alignment,” were being mentally repeated while clearing the shoot-house. Rotating back to the firing line, students had fresh “Clintisms” to mull over such as, “Lack of personal awareness will force you to use personal tactics.” At the end of the day, the class was as mentally demanding as it was physically fatiguing.

At the conclusion of the three day program Clint summarized the experience by saying, “I’m a Conestoga Wagon, Rob is a Space Shuttle.” In reality Clint may be a little less avant-garde than Rob however he is every bit as cutting edge in helping students develop the skills and mindset to survive an armed encounter.

In a nod to the class’s collaboration of tactics and competition, Rob’s postlude was, “Fighting and competition align in that you never think about shooting.” Cerebral axioms like that may be part of the reason Leatham is known in shooting circles simply as “TGO” (The Great One).

Can “Tactics” and “Competition” co-exist? While each can have a corrosive effect on the other they also can be an augmentation to each other. Just as competitive racing helped to mainstream fuel injection and radial tires, so most improvements to the semi-auto pistol since the horse-cavalry-issued 1911 have been developed in the crucible of competition.

“The Perfect Storm” was a seamless marriage of skills and mindsets often portrayed as being at odds. Concentrating on the basics of excellence reveals Tactics and Competition are really more intrinsic than antithetical.

For more information contact:

www.robleatham.com

www.thunderranchinc.com

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