Pistol Shooting Solutions Lectures
By all means, Pistol Shooting Solutions is an intensive handgun shooting class. I already mentioned that I expended around 800 rounds of ammunition, with a good percentage of those being fired while practicing Bill Drills, Split Bill Drills, and the like with intense focus. Suffice it to say that my Walther got very hot during these portions of class.
However, much of the value from this class happens off the firing line, around the circle of folding chairs and/or that picnic table area that nearly every tactical shooting bay seems to have. It’s not just with the class notes that White hands out, but it’s evident there’s a lot of thought behind his “classroom” portion of Pistol Shooting Solutions.
From the way he spoke, it was easy to pick up on how much thought went into every aspect of his material and practices. It was impressive.
In White’s thought process, “no stone is left unturned,” so to speak. To clarify, every aspect of his defensive set-up or potential tactical decisions has a well-reasoned take. Even the mundane—say, the tension between his carry belt and pants waistband. You could ask him about it, and he’d have an intelligent answer.
The Morning Lecture
With his trusty orange training Glock in hand [to demo], White kicked the course off on the morning of the first day with a lecture and some demonstrations that constituted the scaffolding of Pistol Shooting Solutions itself.
Even though this inaugural lecture has been the longest range-side discussion I’ve sat through in a shooting during the morning, it’s well worth the price of admission. Don’t read into that negatively. It’s nothing of that sort. I just wish I would have been even more caffeinated and keyed up to better absorb the knowledge.
This lecture covers everything from the basics of concealment to the draw and the mechanics of shooting. It also crests inner mental patterns as they relate to shooting—it turns out “mental management”, to borrow Lanny Basham’s phrase, isn’t solely for international-level champion shooters.
I still took down a few notes and quotes. Here’s a salient one that distills the essence of his class:
“Getting the gun out and winning the fight ASAP”
“Shooting is an internal martial art.”
There was also another interesting fragment that I captured from this same lecture about “studying the middle [path] of fighting for your life with a pistol.”
The Middle Path
The “Middle Path” or “Middle Way” is a concept from Buddhism that refers to the avoidance of extremes. No, Pistol Shooting Solutions doesn’t go off on some Eastern philosophical tangent. White brings up the concept in class with the intention of teaching students to avoid extremes as it relates to defensive pistolcraft.
Throughout the whole weekend, White presented many ways in which his “Middle Path” concept is useful. Examples include finding the balance between “speed and accuracy” or “sticking to the task at hand” after a fumbled draw, and so on. In short, the goal is to inculcate students with a sense of avoiding extremes in order to “get the gun out and win the fight ASAP.”
White’s “Middle Path” approach made it so clear to me why the four elements of Technical Skills tests are what they are—and also why three of the exercises involve headshots. “Winning the fight ASAP.”
Covering The Afternoon Lecture
On the afternoon of Day 2, we were treated to another excellent lecture and series of demonstrations. More than halfway into the class, this wasn’t about nominal handgun topics or concealment. Rather, this afternoon’s lecture covered cover and prima-facie tactical decisions surrounding its use as they pertain to the civilian defender.
White discussed basic maneuvering and flanking (in the context of potentially encountering an active shooter in a public, crowded space such as a shopping center full of pillars). This lecture even [respectfully] delved into the high-profile Dallas July-7 tragedy to pontificate on some of the concepts surrounding the use of cover. Using the available on-site blue barrels, students were able to practice working, drawing, and shooting around cover.
Testing For Technical Skills
In addition to the educational material afforded by attending Pistol Shooting Solutions, one of the big draws of training with Gabe White is the opportunity to shoot the Technical Skills Testing evaluation for a chance to earn a pin.
I already wrote about the different pins and their requirements in my standalone piece about White’s Technical Skills Testing. But it was nice to have the opportunity to try to earn one for a score for the first time.
Mind you, I’ve been supplementing my own training by doing these drills on and off since 2017, and I still remember how it felt to shoot them then and my scores compared to how I shoot now (and my current scores).
Whereas many instructors allow students to shoot their respective challenges/standards to earn a “coin or patch” at the end of classes, White divides his evaluations of his Technical Skills over both days. It’s partially done to dovetail the drills into the curriculum better as White teaches it throughout both days, and also for efficiency’s sake.
Evaluations
I appreciated that White divided up his evaluations. For the shooter, this affords ample opportunities to strive for one of the higher-ranking pins and get their inner mental state right (or neurotically lose control of it). The class shot the evaluations for the Bill Drill and Failure To Stop on Day 1. On Day 2, we continued with Immediate Incapacitation and the Split Bill Drill.
Because these four exercises are indispensable to the curriculum, all students had plenty of structured time to draw and shoot over each of them. The chance to shoot and earn a pin is great, but the true value here lies in just taking the time to shoot these exercises deliberately and with that type of intensity.
Continued in Part 3
