Charting It
But you can’t measure everything. It’s a mistake to think time and shot placement are the be-all and end-all of survival shooting, and to think every training session has to work on improving those two very important skills. We also have to be concerned with learning tactics, judgment, verbalization, situational awareness, strategic movement, non-lethal weapons, witness management and so on. All of these things, and many more — such as knowing the law or handling the aftermath — are vital to our survival, and after a point they are just as important as shooting faster and straighter.
In the event the real thing happens, a state-class IDPA shooter who has never learned the law or subjected himself to force-on-force simulations will be at a disadvantage to a merely “good” shooter who has. We can visualize this balance of skills by using a management method known as constraint analysis.
Look at Diagram One, depicting a manufacturing operation. The key to increasing this operation’s output is not to simply shovel more raw material into the input. Clearly Operation 1 is the constraint and needs to be improved. If it’s improved to an output of more than 15 units/hour, then Operation 2 is the new constraint.
Now look at this method applied to survival shooting in Diagram Two. This shooter is weakest in speed, so he needs to work on that. Once their speed has reached the “good” level, then they can choose to continue to improve their speed or work on their tactics until they are both excellent, and so on.
If you’re training for survival you’ll be best served by developing all of the necessary skills. Shooting fast and accurately are critically important but they are not the entire skill set you need. After they have reached a “good” level, you should work on the other necessary skills.