Drill: The Exam

"The Exam" drill was born of the Cognitive Conclave training experience. This training course is a meeting of some of the great minds in the industry: John Herne, Erick Gelhaus, Lee Weems and the late John Holschen.

The drill is very similar to The Test, a skill drill used by many instructors over the years. The Test is a drill in which you fire 10 rounds in 10 seconds from the draw. The target is a B8 target, and the score must be over 90 or all in the black, depending on who you ask.

The Exam takes the same drill and chops it up to see if you can apply mental brakes to your shooting. At the conclave, the targets were set on turning backers, giving the student a timed exposure of the target before it disappeared when it turned 90 degrees again. We non high tech folks will have to use a friend with a timer.

Here is the drill:

You will still fire 10 rounds in 10 seconds, from the low ready. But your friend will set the par to a few seconds at a time, with a cumulative time of 10 seconds. For instance, a 3 second time for the first string, then a 5 second time, then a 2 second time. This will test your control over how many rounds you think you can or should shoot in the time period, as well as how effectively you can stop when the time is over.

While The Test is a good way to check your speed and accuracy, The Exam engages the brain with a puzzle of how many rounds can I actually shoot in the time. It also introduces the skill of stopping at an appropriate time, a critical part of real life scenarios.

This is a great drill, and I hope you incorporate it into your training.

Be safe, be well.