What happens when you watch too many tactical videos online

[Shane]

If you spend too much time watching tactical content online, you start thinking in terms that do not really exist in normal conversation. You also start analyzing everything instead of actually practicing it. At some point you realize you are thinking about shooting more than you are actually training. The best thing you can do is put the phone down and go dry fire.

 

[Urban_Warrior]

 Analysis paralysis is definitely a thing. You could spend hours watching video after video, literally a hundred of them, and still not be as good as the person who just did twenty minutes of dry-firing and then packed it in for the day.

 

[Alan]

Yeah, the algorithm builds theories while the gun stays in the safe, better to just train than overthink it online

 

[H.Gary]

I went through that phase where I binged tactical videos nonstop till I realized I knew more buzzwords than actual skills, so I started spending more time dry firing instead

 

[Stewie]

Doing forty-five minutes of dry fire practice each week will improve your skills more than two hours of watching YouTube breakdowns. That’s not just opinion.. it’s how motor learning works.

 

[BrotherHubb]

Confusion, there are a number of basic fundamentals that don’t change and many variations of those principles which work for an individual but not everyone. Think of the golf swing, it’s crazy how many variations there are even with professional golfers but the most important thing is how the club impacts the ball. They all achieve that fundamental differently. Shooting is similar, the sight picture has has to be stable when the shot is made. In the’70’s virtually everyone used a modified Weaver stance or the Bullseye style of shooting but today many never heard of either one, much less tried them. So, take everything you see on YouTube with a heavy dose of salt, and if you like what you see, prove it to yourself on the range and see if it works for you. Always adhere to the fundamentals, that’s where good things happen.

 

[Drycreek]

I guess my age preempts all the above. I learned to shoot on my own, with a little coaching through the written wisdom of Elmer Keith, Skeeter, Al Goerg, Charlie Askins, and many more that I can’t think of right now. They weren’t as tactical as they were practical.

 

[BrotherHubb]

Drycreek, those guys were my heroes as well as Jerry Miculek and as you said, many others. I believe that practical and tactical go hand in hand.

On dry firing, it is very helpful but only if done with good technique, otherwise your ingrained habits will be bad habits that will be much harder to change later. Even after fifty years of shooting, much in LE, I still put myself through a practice regimen daily, when I go to the range it’s not about how many rounds I shoot but rather about how I approach the session as a whole. Mindset, grip, trigger press and breathing as well as what I want to work on in particular. Anyway, that’s just me.

 

[Drycreek]

Drycreek, those guys were my heroes as well as Jerry Miculek and as you said, many others. I believe that practical and tactical go hand in hand.

On dry firing, it is very helpful but only if done with good technique, otherwise your ingrained habits will be bad habits that will be much harder to change later. Even after fifty years of shooting, much in LE, I still put myself through a practice regimen daily, when I go to the range it’s not about how many rounds I shoot but rather about how I approach the session as a whole. Mindset, grip, trigger press and breathing as well as what I want to work on in particular. Anyway, that’s just me.

I guess, being more hunter than shooter, I never did much dry firing. I started with a Model 53 S&W at 16 years old, lived in the country. Twenty-two rimfire was my “dry firing”. I not only got trigger time, and sight picture, lots of times I was able to see where and how much I missed. I learned that most of my misses came from the gun wobbling a minute amount AFTER the hammer started falling. When I took up the SA revolvers I really had to bear down on grip and trigger squeeze to make those shots, because of the long hammer fall.

As far as tactical goes, in my mind that’s the self defense aspect of gun handling and I can still turn in a pretty good performance at self defense ranges even though my eyes are far from perfect. There’s this new invention called a reflex sight…

 

[BrotherHubb]

Sounds like we have much in common, I had a Smith 22 as well, my early partners and I would come up with all kinds of scenarios in ravines and woods mostly. I was Army during Vietnam where I had my first exposure to the 1911 and came to trust it with my life as well as the lives of others in my LE career. I too have found myself embracing the benefits of red dots (green in my case) and long before I began tactical training, swat and sniper schools or became a firearms instructor, I had the will and focus to do what needed doing. Still do