Bad Weather!

05 Oct 09

Weather Factor!

We just completed a Defensive Handgun/Urban Rifle Course in northern Nevada. By chance, an early snow storm rolled in upon us on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. We were shooting at a remote, unprotected site, with no shelter, nor buildings of any kind.

The sun was hidden by a thick overcast. Temperatures plummeted. There was snow on the ground. We found ourselves slogging around in cold mud, and a relentless wind blew loose grit into our faces, and guns. Students were profoundly uncomfortable, as was I, and we all endured it for two, long days and nights.

I had a number of students there who have been with us before, are competent Operators, and have demonstrated eminent shooting and gun-handling acumen multiple times before. They, and I, by the end of the second day, were sufficiently beat-up that our performance significantly deteriorated. Several students had to sit-out the last exercises, because they were too fatigued to continue safely. They could no longer absorb instruction. I should have recognized it sooner than I did.

One of my instructors observed, "We do entirely too much of our training on bright, sunny, warm, calm days. When weather is bad, we don't come out and train. What I learned today is that what we should be doing is waiting for bad weather to train in! I had no idea how much it would affect us."

He is right! I don't believe in discomfort for discomfort's sake, but, now and then, we have to get out in the cold, wind, rain, snow, and muck, so we can see for ourselves what our capabilities really are. When the Test comes, the weather will be whatever it will be, and we must be both competent and confident, regardless.

Precious few of life's genuinely beneficial experiences are enjoyable!

And, not one of the "world-record" shooting scores you've heard about were accomplished in a cold, muddy ditch, at night, in the rain!

/John