This weekend, we hosted another Intermediate Defensive Rifle course in Ravensdale, WA at Cascade Shooting Facilities. The course went well, mainly due to the outstanding people who showed up and worked really hard all weekend. The course was mostly regular folks with a couple of action and former action guys mixed in.
IDR is a three day course, and in the past a large focus has been on extended range shooting with a carbine. Due to the schedule at the range, we were not able to secure the 600 yard range. As a result, we spent all three days on the 200 yard range. While we missed some of what we have done in years past, we were able to more fully develop some of the gun-handling, movement and teamwork tactics and skills from previous years. At the end of the weekend, no one felt short changed.
Day 1 was a beautiful sunny day in the high 70s. After a discussion of the Universal Firearms Handling Rules, we hit the range hard. Much of the first day is a review of our General Defensive Rifle class. We spent most of the morning working on our shooting platform. I find that most students work hard trying to mimic the instructor. Unfortunately, the stance they incorporate may look similar to what the instructor is doing, but most people do not activate their muscles correctly, and the result is a platform that looks kind of correct but does not allow for true accuracy and speed. We worked on some specific drills throughout the course that helped ensure that students understood how to correctly energize their body and drive the weapon system hard. Read more
