Wednesday, November 03, 2021

Recoil Control

This picture right here shows the secret sauce I wanna learn from Scott. There's surprisingly little muscle effort going on there, and what there is is all in the support hand. It's almost entirely mechanics, because with a service-size 9mm auto there's frankly not a ton of recoil to control.

Weight slightly forward, some bend in the elbows for shock absorption, and a support hand positioned so that there's really no place for the recoil to go. 

One place where Scott shines as an instructor is the amount of individual coaching students receive.


I've seen some instructors whose "lesson plan" is basically a series of drills. The instructor describes the drill, (hopefully) demonstrates it for the class, and then lets the class do a couple repetitions of it. Maybe some handwaving about general principles gets offered at the end of those reps, and then the instructor flips to the next index card in the stack and we're on to another drill.

That's not really teaching; it's practicing from a skill checklist with a range safety officer present. You can do that with a book or a YouTube video at your local supervised range.


One reason the round count is high at a Modern Samurai Project class is that if there are, say, nine students on the line, then each drill is going to get run for at least nine reps. That ensures Scott has a chance to get eyeballs on each student's technique and offer individual coaching.

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