Elevating Your Edge: Riley Bowman on Advancing Shooting Skills through Competition and Concealed Carry Integration

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Hi, welcome to the Arm Guardian Podcast, Season 2, Episode 8.

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Today, David Crystal and I will be talking with Riley Bowman from the Concealed Carry Podcast.

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Riley is a competitive shooter in the USPSA competition program and he's going to discuss how being involved in competition shooting can help you hone your skills to be a better concealed carrier.

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So sit back and enjoy today's episode as we talk to Riley about competition and how it relates to concealed carry training.

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Hi, welcome to the Armed Guardian Podcast.

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Today, David Crystal and I have a guest, Riley Bowman, on, and we're going to talk about competition shooting and how it can help you in a training method for your concealed carry.

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So, without further ado, hey, Riley, how you doing sir?

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I'm great, thank you.

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Appreciate you having me on.

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I appreciate you and the topic that I thought could be very beneficial to new shooters and even the seasoned shooters to stay on top of their game and maybe even have fun while they're doing that training, and I felt that you were the best qualified from the people that I knew of that could could answer these questions.

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So I appreciate your time today.

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So who is Riley Bowman?

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And give us a little bit of your background if you don't mind, please, sir.

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Yeah, I'll start off by saying that first I think of myself as a father of five beautiful children, husband to my wife, business partner with Jacob and everything that we got going on at concealedcarrycom, which, over the years over eight years we've been doing this full-time now has grown more and more and more, yeah, and along with that adding a whole bunch of brands.

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I'll come back to some of those here in a minute, just so people know what those all are.

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But about, oh, 18 years ago or so, I got my oldest son at 17, and I just remember thinking, when we were expecting our first child, that I should probably take the defense of my family a little bit more seriously than I had.

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Up to that point, I would say I was a very casual gun owner.

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I certainly believe in outdoors stuff and hunting and fishing and the Second Amendment and all that.

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I grew up in a rural community, grew up shooting, learning how to shoot from uncles and grandfathers and other family members, um and but decided to get more serious about it, like I said, about the time we were expecting my, my firstborn, and so, uh, it's pretty easy to remember that timeline Cause, like I said, he's 17 and you know, and not that far away from being an adult himself, but about 12 or 13 years ago, I got into teaching concealed carry classes.

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This was after practicing concealed carry myself and getting some training and learning some things for a few years, started teaching the classes.

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That's how I got linked up with jacob, actually originally, and then I just kept pursuing the opportunities you know.

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I wanted to get better, I wanted to know more.

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I felt like it was my responsibility, my duty as an instructor, to be informed and up to date on the latest and greatest, you know, information, concealed carry related shootings, self-defense, et cetera.

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Uh, about, we'll see 2016.

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I had the opportunity to compete in a televised competition on outdoor channel called uh, american marksman.

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Uh, it was a two episode series on outdoor channel.

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I didn't, don't worry.

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I mean you can go watch it.

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I think it's a cool show.

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Uh, I'm in there all of I don't know, like 30 seconds or something.

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There's a lot of people, but I did make it all the way to the finals on that, as far as the national championship in, which was held in Talladega, alabama, back in January of 2017.

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So, basically, seven years ago now.

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It's hard to believe, and that kind of got me into competition shooting.

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I'd always been vaguely aware of competition shooting, didn't know much about kind of how to get started or where to go, and so actually the thing we're going to talk about today is something I'm really passionate about because I was already a fairly experienced concealed carrier shooter, instructor.

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I was part-time law enforcement enforcement reserve and so you know.

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But even then, with all that I didn't know, uh, what I didn't know about competition shooting or even where to get started.

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So that competition, uh, and which I just heard from a friend, he's like, hey, all you gotta do is go to this in into this indoor range and they're gonna have you shoot a qualifier and, depending on how you score on that, determine if you move on to the next level.

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And I just kept moving to the next level, to the next level, ended up being the winner of the regional championship and that took me to the national championship where I finished 10th, and so that that was kind of the catalyst to so many other things that followed and I realized, number one, I was really passionate about wanting to get even better at shooting and number two, that I realized well, you mentioned it, we talked about it on my podcast.

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There's an opportunity to share that with other people you know and to kind of help them discover the joys.

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That's really the thing is.

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It's a joyful, happy, fun endeavor to participate in competition shooting.

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It's a wonderful community.

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There's a lot of opportunities there.

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That's kind of the story.

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Along with that I got into 3Gun for a few years and then I transitioned from that to where I strictly compete in USPSA.

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Right now I've thought about dipping my toe in IDPA or even the tactical games possibly, or something I don't know.

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But right now I'm pretty laser focused on USPSA.

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So I've managed to achieve a master class rating in USPSA.

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Still haven't quite got that grandmaster classification yet, even though I know I'm capable of it.

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Just got to keep putting in the work and I got to have more classifier opportunities to get to that.

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I guess most elite levels.

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But even as a master class competitor I've done quite well, finishing top 10 in area and state championships.

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Winning the last two state championships I've participated in and state championships winning the last two state championships I've participated in and finishing as good as 15th at nationals just this last November in Florida at the IPSC National Championship in Production Division.

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So I've done quite well for myself and other.

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Riley biographical information I'm certified in a lot of the typical disciplines you expect.

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Nra I'm no longer active, but I did get a USCCA instructor as well as training counselor certification, a number of years ago.

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I've also trained well.

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I got post certifications back from when I was law enforcement and both handgun and patrol rifle instructor.

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I've trained with a bunch of who's who's in the firearms industry Rob Latham, mike C Klander, scott Jablinski, tim Herron, matt Little, a whole bunch of others guys I really love and respect and many of them I consider friends and mentors.

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Now, and yeah, I think that's pretty much it.

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Back to concealedcarrycom.

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That's my full-time, day-to-day job and within that we're trying to be the number one resource online for concealed carry-related information, education and products.

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And then, along with that, we acquired a number of brands or started up brands like Mountain Medical I know you interviewed Brian from Mountain Medical.

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That's one of the brands we launched a few years ago.

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Like Mountain Medical I know you interviewed Brian from Mountain Medical.

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That's one of the brands we launched a few years ago Range Tech, shot Timers, barrel Block oh golly KSG, army Holsters See, I can't remember all the brands that we run now.

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So yeah, radiant Gear would be another one.

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So yeah, it's me just pursuing, you know, all these opportunities as they've kind of landed at my feet and trying not to say no, and then just grind, grind, grind, grind.

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Okay, there you go.

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It's probably longer in an intro, but when people ask for an intro, I'm like man, I don't even know where to begin because there's a lot of different.

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I wear a lot of hats too, but as simply as I can, that's Riley Bowman in a nutshell.

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All right, yeah, we interviewed Clint earlier this week for our upcoming podcast to be aired Monday, but he started out many years ago.

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I was, my mom was at a concert and and he went into and then, oh no, that's a joke.

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That's a joke, and but, yeah, he was a card, but uh, yeah, that one's be posted coming up monday.

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It's uh on national train of teacher day.

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So, uh, oh, yeah, yeah, partnering, we're partnering with, with my business, and uh, crystal with hers, and uh, yeah, it's something that I became passionate about.

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So, um, absolutely anxious.

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I've known clint for years and and I really respect the heck out of what he does with national training teacher day.

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I haven't been able to participate because, uh, there has seems like there's always um, and I I'll honest, I didn't look at it this year, probably still could, but the last several years I'm like, oh no, I'm already booked for this or I'm already booked for that, and I need to do a better job of trying to look forward, you know, on next year's calendar and make sure that you know, cause I'd be all over that.

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I think that that's a wonderful thing and I'm glad you're participating in that.

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Yeah, All right, well, we'll jump into our questions here.

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Um first question was uh, what are the different types of leagues or associations out there for people to get involved in?

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Um with uh competition shooting?

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Yeah, so you know I touched on a couple of those right in my intro, I guess, so I'll start with USPSA, which actually is probably the longest running.

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Certainly in practical shooting is the longest running most established practical shooting league as you refer to, or it's a sport or an association.

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Yeah so, uspsa I say it's the longest running.

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It originally started as IPSC International Practical Shooting Confederation, or some people refer to it as IPSC.

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Ipsc still is a thing.

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Uspsa is really just the US portion of IPSC.

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Ipsc is an international organization.

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Jeff Cooper was hugely instrumental in starting IPSC.

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I mean, he was really the driving force behind that.

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That was as a result of, you know, they had been kind of experimenting with different shooting competitions and leagues and things in you know, southern California, especially the Big Bear area, which is where Jeff Cooper was at the time, and a number of pretty well-known names that you'd recognize too, like Eldon Carl and a number of other kind of high-level shooting types that you would know from that era, and so they were doing these leather slap matches, which was kind of cowboy action-inspired, quick draw from the hip, just draw and fire.

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One shot was really what they amounted to, and that ran its course for about a decade or so and was very, very popular.

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But I think that Cooper and others knew that hey, there needs to be something more and I think they really were on to something by doing something that.

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I mean it did kind of start out a little bit as a game and as a sport, as something for fun, but they took it very seriously and it became an opportunity to test equipment and gear and techniques and see you know what works best and what doesn't.

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But clearly there was a way to expound upon that and so in 1976, ipsc was founded, what they call the Columbia Conference in Missouri, in Columbia Missouri.

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That's why it's the Columbia Conference and that was organized by Cooper.

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They brought in a bunch of respected people from around the US and throughout the world and that's one of the cool forward-thinking things about IPSC is right.

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From day one they had representatives from Japan, the UK, south Africa, other countries in Southeast Asia, mexico, canada.

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A bunch of different international countries were represented at the Columbia Conference, the founding of IPSC and if you go back and look at the founding documents and the original meeting minutes which you can still see today, some of that's recorded in history.

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I'm thankful to him for doing so, carl Wren, if you're familiar with him of TR Training out of near kind of the Austin Texas area, on his website he's got a lot of those original documents uploaded and saved there uploaded and saved there.

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But they basically explain how.

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This is out of an attempt to try to continue that work that they had started with the leather slap matches, which was to discover what techniques and what gear works best like basically prove it.

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And you can't very easily do a face-off head-to-head competition with live rounds, you know, between people and see what works.

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That doesn't work very well and they didn't really have some munitions back in the day.

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So the closest thing was to come up with competition, and so that's where it started and everything else kind of born out of that, at least in the practical shooting scene, and so IPSC.

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They later decided oh, we got to break up the world into these regions within the world, and the US region is what's known as USPSA or the United States Practical Shooting Association, and I think that was official in 1985.

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About not even quite 10 years later.

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A few folks decided that USPSA had become too sporty or too gamey, so they decided to create IDPA International Defensive Pistol Association and so IDPA was created and founded, very similar in a lot of respects to USPSA.

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It's very much a practical shooting sport but the rules are such to try to make it a little less gamey and a little bit more defensive.

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You know, scenario kind of oriented which which there's some pluses and minuses to that approach, but obviously it's been a successful organization, as it's still in effect today.

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Three gun also came out of the early eighties which was basically very IPSC or USPSA like.

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But hey, let's do the same thing.

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But now let's do rifle, shotgun and pistol, all three right.

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Three guns are more fun than one gun, right?

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That's kind of why I got into three guns when I first got into competition shooting and it was fun.

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But I also found out it's very expensive, which was not the only, but one kind of major driver for me.

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To just focus on USPSA for the time being, I realized I could get more of my goals accomplished while spending less money.

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So those are probably your three big ones, especially in practical shooting, is USPSA and IDPA and then 3GUN.

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And while those other two are very well-defined organizations, 3gun is not.

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There are more like regional or sometimes state or local organizations that run their own variety of 3GUN matches.

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We might refer to those as outlaw matches, meaning they're simply not associated with any kind of organization right, Not sanctioned by anybody.

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There's been a couple attempts to try to create more of a national level multi-gun or three gun organization, but all of those attempts thus far have for the most part failed.

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Uh, or at least failed, and not like some of them are still operating.

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They just haven't gotten the traction to really become widespread, right.

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So, um, you know, beyond that, you've got smaller and kind of more.

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Oh, I forgot steel challenge.

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I should have mentioned Steel Challenge.

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Steel Challenge also began in the early to mid 80s, which is lumped into practical shooting.

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It's a lot less on the shooting and moving that we tend to see in the run and gun sports the other three that I mentioned but it's really about just raw, pure speed.

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It's like drag racing with a pistol or a PCC in your hand.

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What's the absolute fastest that I can push, the limits of my abilities and the limits of my gun, my equipment, to hit these five steel targets as fast as possible.

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It's actually a great place to get started for a lot of people because the equipment requirements are actually pretty minimal compared to some of their sports.

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You don't have to have all the mag pouches and you don't even really have to have much in the way of a belt, unless you're because you could show up with a .22 rifle or a PCC or even a .22 caliber pistol, and all those are done from a low ready, so you don't even have to have a holster at that point, so you can just show up with a gun and shoot a steel

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challenge match.

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And steel challenge was acquired by USPSA, I think around 2007 or 2008 or thereabouts, so it's actually part of the USPSA organization now.

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So outside of that you've got a lot of smaller, more localized outlaw type things You've got.

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I mean, for instance, like some ranges will run like a bowling pin, you know shoot or something, or they'll just run some kind of their you know their own variation of a USPSA or IDPA like shooting match, right, and so you see quite a few of those around and some clubs and some ranges will run a USPSA sanctioned one and an IDPA sanctioned one and maybe even a steel challenge sanctioned match, and then they'll have one that sometimes they'll just call it a tactical match or an outlaw match, and it'll be very similar to those other sports, but just not affiliated with any organization.

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So, as is typical, if you ask me a question I'm going to give you a fairly detailed answer, but hopefully that covers the bases as far as different organizations that you can get involved with for competition shooting.

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Okay.

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Second part of that question is some people, I would imagine, and I've had some people.

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Whenever I talk about getting involved in competition shooting well, don't I have to be an expert?

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No To me.

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I tell them no, they don't, you just got to have basic marksmanship skills, and it was kind of something to help.

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So if somebody was thinking about, okay, well, you piqued my interest, I think I might want to try one of these three.

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What do I do, since I've never stepped foot on a competition range?

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How do I get involved in something like that?

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What's the process that they go through?

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Yeah, yeah, so you're exactly right, you don't have to be an expert.

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Very few people are what I would call experts that participate in these sports.

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By and large, most of them are certainly amateurs and do it just purely for fun, and that really is.

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I mean, yeah, we're going to talk about the practical applications of what do we get out of this competition that maybe helps us on the tactical or defensive side, and certainly you could take those things as seriously as you want to, but it's also just a lot of fun to participate, and so why, why shouldn't we have fun?

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Um, and so you know, I mean, you don't have to be an expert and you shouldn't be an expert.

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Uh, I would say, to get involved, you really just need to have some modicum of basic gun handling skills and safety.

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Like, as long as you can be safe, then you should be able to participate and show up and participate in these.

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As far as how to get started, how to find them, a couple of options.

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One you can certainly talk to your local ranges and see if they host anything like that, and a lot of them do not all of them do, but a lot of them do and you may find something that way, like, for instance, in my local area here at least all of the big name ranges and I'm including the indoor ones run some kind of match at the range and some run multiple.

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And so you can stop in and be like, hey, do you guys organize any competitions or shooting matches and see what they've got?

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And if they don't, hopefully you know they can point you to another range where they where they do, and if they don't do that, maybe that'll be an encouragement for them to go.

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Maybe we should organize something like that.

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People are asking cause.

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I think it's a great way for ranges to bring people in to experience the range, to get familiar with the range.

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Um, I I became a member of a club because I was shooting matches at that club and so, uh, it's a great way of getting people indoor some, some ranges.

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I think look at it as well we gotta shut everything down for the night, you know, and that's money we're not making.

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But then you have match fees and range fees that are part of the match fees.

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So it might not be as much revenue sometimes if you have a really busy night for your indoor range, but a lot of times I think the payoffs come later on too, as you get more people through the door and buying product from you, buying ammo from you, buying a membership from you eventually.

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But that's one way is to find and get involved in some of the matches.

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Probably the simplest way that you can do right now online is you can go to practice scorecom.

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That's P-R-A-C-T-I-S-C-O-R-Ecom, practice scorecom.

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It's like practical and score mixed together and that is the number one resource.

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That's the number one website that is used by match directors and people that run matches for scorekeeping of matches.

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Why?

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Because it's a great software.

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Nobody has done it better.

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So everybody uses it, which is convenient because it's a one-stop shop to find not every match, but about 95% of matches are probably on practice score, from at least my estimation.

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And so go on practicescorecom and you can search by.

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You click on matches and you can pull up by area.

00:22:17.969 --> 00:22:21.949
You can see within your local area or whatever.

00:22:21.949 --> 00:22:24.265
Like I've done that on the road, I travel a little bit and I go.

00:22:24.265 --> 00:22:32.428
I wonder if on Thursday evening, while I'm in that particular city, if I can go hit that match and I just get on practice score and search by that area.

00:22:32.428 --> 00:22:39.027
So then you'll find USPSA and IDPA and multi-gun and still challenge matches and all kinds of matches on practice score.

00:22:39.027 --> 00:22:40.424
So that's the simple way.

00:22:41.279 --> 00:22:44.788
Now, again back to getting started and getting involved.

00:22:44.788 --> 00:23:00.942
You don't have to be an expert, but you do need to be safe, and a lot of them will require that you participate in some kind of intro class or a safety class, just so that they know that you're safe when you're going to shoot your first match.

00:23:00.942 --> 00:23:16.721
And so when you're signing up for a match not all the matches do as good a job with this, but a lot of times what I see is they'll have some information of, hey, if you're new to this, we have a safety class that's held, you know, for the two hours preceding the match start time.

00:23:16.721 --> 00:23:26.490
Or we have a safety class on, you know, tuesday night or Saturday, or you know whatever They'll say that they have a safety class or an orientation class or an intro to compete.

00:23:26.490 --> 00:23:32.430
You know competitive shooting class that they ask you to take, and so, uh, you want to look for that kind of information.

00:23:32.430 --> 00:23:38.772
And then, of course, uh, you know, attend that that safety or or orientation class, uh, to get started.

00:23:38.772 --> 00:23:51.016
And, um, again, you know that's going to be dictated a little bit by the specific range or organization or club that's running the matches, to the quality of that.

00:23:51.016 --> 00:24:01.270
But in my experience they're there to help you succeed and have a good time in competition shooting and so I think those are worthwhile classes to take.

00:24:04.200 --> 00:24:05.545
Worthwhile classes to take, the ones I think that work.

00:24:05.545 --> 00:24:15.691
The best is if they have it like if they tell you a match starts at, let's say, it's a local indoor match and it starts at 7pm or 6pm, they'll say, hey, if you can be here at 4pm we have an orientation class.

00:24:15.691 --> 00:24:32.208
You basically spend about two hours getting orientated, going through safety rules, all that stuff, getting a feel for how things are done, and then they'll let you go right into shooting the match later that evening where you're kind of, you know, handheld by, you know, the person teaching that orientation class.

00:24:32.208 --> 00:24:43.705
At least that's the best way I've seen this done and it works great and so they're right there to kind of help you along the way, see how to get into it, you know, see how to actually shoot the match and do it safely and understand the rules and all that stuff.

00:24:44.386 --> 00:24:56.088
So I'm all for making getting into competition matches less intimidating, because, whether you want to admit it or not.

00:24:56.088 --> 00:25:08.369
I mean, I'll admit it now, but back when I was, you know, just a reserve cop and an instructor, I thought it would be cool to shoot matches, but I was a little bit intimidated because I didn't know a whole lot of stuff.

00:25:08.369 --> 00:25:10.205
I didn't know where to get started.

00:25:10.205 --> 00:25:12.811
So that kept me from getting involved.

00:25:12.811 --> 00:25:21.589
And I wish I got involved sooner, because I consider this to be a blessing in my life and wish I had had that blessing sooner in my life.

00:25:23.340 --> 00:25:31.628
Most people, or most of the ranges, if I remember right, they have guests that can come and even just observe.

00:25:31.628 --> 00:25:54.244
Oh yeah, so if somebody says I'm interested but I don't know how far I want to jump in just yet, maybe I need to go see a match ran, and then most of the clubs, if I remember from my involvement in the past, they allow the guests to come and just kind of observe and enjoy the.

00:25:55.106 --> 00:25:58.527
I haven't seen a single match that didn't allow that.

00:25:58.527 --> 00:26:06.584
I'm not saying it doesn't exist out there somewhere, but if that's true, then then I think they're in the wrong, because that's you know.

00:26:06.584 --> 00:26:07.726
You absolutely should.

00:26:07.726 --> 00:26:10.962
Oh, you should want people to be able to come and observe.

00:26:10.962 --> 00:26:14.115
Uh, if anything, just to observe, like, why not like?

00:26:14.115 --> 00:26:19.816
Why wouldn't we want more people to enjoy this with us, even if they're not just spending a shooting, like I?

00:26:19.816 --> 00:26:20.960
Practical shooting.

00:26:20.960 --> 00:26:22.741
Sports are awesome and they're fun.

00:26:22.741 --> 00:26:23.723
I think they're fun to watch.

00:26:23.723 --> 00:26:31.153
But, yeah, that is almost always totally doable and usually for no cost either.

00:26:31.153 --> 00:26:32.962
That's another thing People might be like.

00:26:32.982 --> 00:26:34.509
Let me give you an example.

00:26:34.509 --> 00:26:44.392
If you wanted to show up and observe the IDPA National Championship or any of the USPSA National Championships this coming year, just show up to the range.

00:26:44.392 --> 00:26:46.575
Nobody's going to charge you walking in.

00:26:46.575 --> 00:26:54.230
Nobody's going to care as long as you've got eye and ear pro and you stay back away from where the shooting's happening.

00:26:54.230 --> 00:26:57.202
You don't have to be like, just make sure you stay where it's safe.

00:26:57.202 --> 00:27:01.203
Nobody's going to even ask who you are or what you're doing there.

00:27:01.203 --> 00:27:04.986
You're just there hanging out and observing and having a good time watching the match.

00:27:04.986 --> 00:27:12.526
So not even a cost associated with watching the highest level matches that exist in the game.

00:27:12.700 --> 00:27:16.823
So, absolutely, and I have encouraged others to do that hey, why don't you?

00:27:16.823 --> 00:27:19.859
In fact, that's how I got somebody locally here involved a while back.

00:27:19.859 --> 00:27:26.547
I said, hey, why don't you just come and watch this match it's you know, monday night at such and such time on this indoor range and come check it out?

00:27:26.547 --> 00:27:28.409
And they're like, oh okay, sure you know.

00:27:28.409 --> 00:27:31.291
And then, of course, they're like, ah, it was great, let's do it.

00:27:31.291 --> 00:27:34.095
So the next time they show up and they sign up and they participate.

00:27:34.496 --> 00:27:44.373
Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm a member of David and I were a defensive pistol shoot.

00:27:44.373 --> 00:27:49.330
It's not a sanctioned, it's just our own club and we run it.

00:27:49.330 --> 00:27:57.265
And back over Thanksgiving weekend I had decided to turn things up a little bit.

00:27:57.265 --> 00:28:11.237
I decided to run a low light defensive shoot uh at our club and our defensive area and uh turned out to be very a lot of people enjoyed it and want to want to have more of those which, uh, I don't.

00:28:11.237 --> 00:28:20.065
I know the IDP, those associations, those are pretty much if they're at an outdoor range they're held during the daytime, during light and everything.

00:28:20.065 --> 00:28:25.627
But I thought just, you know most of your defensive shooting.

00:28:25.627 --> 00:28:29.005
Well, not most, but you can have defensive shootings in low light.

00:28:29.005 --> 00:28:31.583
Are people really accustomed?

00:28:31.583 --> 00:28:34.174
Do they know how to handle a gun in low light?

00:28:34.174 --> 00:28:37.505
We went over a little safety briefing and stuff before the shoot.

00:28:37.505 --> 00:28:44.744
But yeah, people, people enjoyed it and I think it's uh something that uh, I would like to see.

00:28:44.805 --> 00:28:59.695
More clubs, you know, kind of running those, maybe some little lower light or less light oh yeah and so I'm aware of several matches and several clubs that run a low light match at least once per year and they're always a hit.

00:28:59.695 --> 00:29:14.336
Uh, and I could tell you too that in recent memory, several uh idp national championships have had stages, whole stages, that were done in low light and the match is taking place during the day time.

00:29:14.336 --> 00:29:21.690
So they either have a structure available to them to do that or they build a structure, you know, or something to make that possible.

00:29:21.690 --> 00:29:30.942
I think just this last one or at least I know for sure, at least the last one or two IDP national championships have had low light stages as part of the national championship.

00:29:30.942 --> 00:29:32.096
So yeah, absolutely I think it's.

00:29:32.096 --> 00:29:33.903
Why not?

00:29:33.903 --> 00:29:38.092
You know, if you could do low light work as part of a match setting?

00:29:38.092 --> 00:29:39.637
Yeah, sounds like a good time to me.

00:29:40.160 --> 00:29:42.547
All right, your question.

00:29:42.547 --> 00:29:54.290
So, riley, with all the different leagues and associations out there, what are some of the differences and strengths and weaknesses of them for people that are getting involved?

00:29:55.275 --> 00:30:07.223
Yeah, let me address this first by saying what is the major strength of participating in or running a sanctioned match, because I think that's a good place to start.

00:30:07.223 --> 00:30:18.692
And so by that I mean like a USPSA match or an IDPA match or a still challenge match, which are part of well-defined, fairly large organizations.

00:30:18.692 --> 00:30:22.957
Well-defined, fairly large organizations.

00:30:22.957 --> 00:30:26.763
Why do that, as opposed to just doing your own thing and running pure outlaw matches or tactical or defensive match?

00:30:26.763 --> 00:30:36.288
And the reason why to do something that's associated with an organization is because of the structure that it provides.

00:30:36.288 --> 00:30:43.965
And it goes way beyond just rules and rule sets and specific targets that you use and things like that.

00:30:43.965 --> 00:30:45.761
It goes way beyond that.

00:30:45.761 --> 00:31:09.644
What I would say and this is actually what got me into USPSA is because I started realizing that something was sort of missing for me when I was competing in 3Gun, because all the 3Gun I did out, especially out here in the West, is woefully disorganized, primarily down in the southeast portion of the country.

00:31:09.644 --> 00:31:17.385
I think it's kind of died off now, but for a good stretch there there was a multi-gun organization called 3Gun Nation.

00:31:17.385 --> 00:31:20.082
They even televised matches and stuff.

00:31:20.082 --> 00:31:20.964
It was a whole big deal.

00:31:20.964 --> 00:31:24.526
They were trying to make that organization go big and nationwide.

00:31:24.526 --> 00:31:28.204
I really wish it could have succeeded, but in the end it did not.

00:31:32.078 --> 00:31:37.755
Out here in the West our state championship we had here a couple other major matches I participated in in Three Gun.

00:31:37.755 --> 00:31:45.566
What I realized was lacking for me was I would get done with a match and I'd be like, well, I finished 5th or 4th.

00:31:45.566 --> 00:31:55.398
I think my best finish at a big 3-gun match was 4th place in my division, which I felt really good about because I beat a lot of good guys that day, but there were still some others I didn't beat.

00:31:55.398 --> 00:32:25.763
What I didn't know, though, is I didn't really truly know how I stacked up against other certain competitors, because they didn't happen to make it to that particular one, and so organization provides things like a classification system, which is what USPSA, idpa and Steel Challenge all have, and so what that does is it allows you to very quickly know and understand where people are at skill-wise, and that might not be important to everybody, but it was important to me.

00:32:26.955 --> 00:32:49.536
But what it allows you to do is I mean, it's kind of like if you're familiar with golf or racing there are other competitions and sports that people participate in where it's not just about the overall winner, but you also have like different classes of winners, right, and so you have like people of like skill competing against each other and you know.

00:32:49.536 --> 00:32:57.317
So, number one, you get to kind of see how you stack up in your respective class, and then, number two, you're always hoping that maybe you can move up to the next class, right.

00:32:57.317 --> 00:33:02.019
And then, number two, you're always hoping that maybe you could move up to the next class, right.

00:33:02.019 --> 00:34:09.032
And that was appealing to me, that things are as close to apples to apples as possible, meaning that you can go to a match in Georgia, you can go to a match in Colorado, and, while individual stages that are set for the match might be, you know whatever very different, but each of those matches could run on the same weekend the exact same USPSA classifier and that'll be set up very precisely to specific measurements and target placements and wall positions and barricades or whatever, and fault lines, so that the way I shoot it in Colorado is by the fact that we all shoot the same classifications a number of times each year.

00:34:09.032 --> 00:34:41.032
So, and that's true, I guess that's also true at IDPA the big strengths that an organization or competition league like these that we're talking about brings to the table is because you can actually do that, because you have the organization, you have the structure and you show up to a maybe a state match or a regional match or a national level match.

00:34:41.032 --> 00:34:48.101
You can now also compare yourself to other people in a of a like skill level and I think that has a big.

00:34:48.101 --> 00:34:59.282
I think there's a lot of benefits to that, because one of the big things I think that drives people away from competition, especially when they show up the first time and this is true, this was true of me, this was true of a lot of people I've seen.

00:34:59.282 --> 00:35:00.885
I've seen this happen multiple times.

00:35:01.706 --> 00:35:04.710
Let's just take, you know, some some SWAT cop.

00:35:04.710 --> 00:35:11.039
You know he thinks he's hot stuff because, I mean, he probably is.

00:35:11.039 --> 00:35:32.161
He, he's, he's worked really hard to become this you know SWAT officer and and, and you know, does very important work in in his line of work and has gotten very skilled with a handgun and a rifle and is physically fit and all these things right Shows up to his first USPSA match and in that match you've got some D-class shooters, c-class shooters, b, a-class, maybe a handful of master class.

00:35:32.161 --> 00:35:44.873
Maybe, if you're lucky, there's one or two GMs, grandmasters, at that match, and hey, I'm this big, bad SWAT cop, let's go see what I can do at this local match.

00:35:44.873 --> 00:36:01.005
And they walk away a few hours later like three from the bottom Getting trounced by all these other dentists and doctors and IT techs and people that you't.

00:36:01.005 --> 00:36:10.302
You know that you wouldn't expect to be highly skilled with a pistol or whatever in their hands, and so then that's a huge hit to the ego and you're like, oh man, I don't want to do that again.

00:36:10.302 --> 00:36:18.963
I think there's something to be said that if you have shooters that show up and they're just constantly getting beat by these high-level shooters, that's not a lot of fun.

00:36:18.963 --> 00:36:32.945
But if you have different classifications, you can kind of look a little bit more of how am I doing against people of skill Maybe keeps it from being quite so intimidating and disheartening at the same time.

00:36:32.945 --> 00:36:37.146
So that would be some major strengths.

00:36:38.076 --> 00:36:39.322
Talk about the individual ones.

00:36:39.322 --> 00:36:57.588
Uspsa's strength is that it's the largest, best well-organized of these primary practical shooting sport organizations, and so that's definitely a strength right, and it's been doing it for a long time.

00:36:57.588 --> 00:37:01.447
So like that's definitely a strength right and it's been doing it for a long time.

00:37:01.447 --> 00:37:18.594
No-transcript.

00:37:18.594 --> 00:37:25.329
You're taking scores from each individual stage and then you can take everything and compile it and make an overall score.

00:37:25.329 --> 00:37:30.206
So you don't just win the whole match based on a single stage, but multiple stages.

00:37:30.206 --> 00:37:31.340
You've got to do well on everything.

00:37:32.144 --> 00:37:35.920
It's pretty comprehensive, but it's all about shooting efficiency.

00:37:35.920 --> 00:37:37.585
That's what USPSA is all about.

00:37:37.585 --> 00:37:39.615
The whole sport is purely based off of shooting efficiency.

00:37:39.615 --> 00:37:39.938
That's what USPSA is all about.

00:37:39.938 --> 00:37:41.123
The whole sport is purely based off of shooting efficiency.

00:37:41.123 --> 00:37:45.742
How efficiently can you place rounds on certain targets?

00:37:45.742 --> 00:37:52.998
And efficiency implies hey, the sooner or faster I can do the thing better, right.

00:37:52.998 --> 00:37:56.824
But if that's at the cost of poor accuracy, well, that's not that efficient.

00:37:56.824 --> 00:38:10.306
So we're looking for this sweet spot of I need to hit good hits and also do it in as little time as possible, and that's a measure of efficiency that in USPSA is referred to as hit factor or points per second scored.

00:38:11.268 --> 00:38:13.277
In IDPA, for instance, it's a little bit different.

00:38:13.277 --> 00:38:19.750
It's still a measurement of efficiency to a degree, but it's not quite as perfectly calculated.

00:38:19.750 --> 00:38:23.664
In IDPA it's still a time.

00:38:23.664 --> 00:38:30.989
Actually, the final score is a time score instead of a factor of points divided by time, which is how it's calculated in USPSA.

00:38:30.989 --> 00:38:43.864
In IDPA you just take your time that you shot a stage in, and then if you have certain hits outside of certain target areas, then you add on seconds or whatever to to you know as penalties to that Right, yeah, and so that works okay too.

00:38:45.695 --> 00:38:51.898
But I think there's also some areas where that could probably be improved from a scoring side of things.

00:38:51.898 --> 00:39:01.353
But one of the strengths of that type of scoring is it's also very simple, because people understand the idea of well, this is the, this is the time I got that done in, and now I add on my penalties for the poor hits that I got.

00:39:01.353 --> 00:39:05.001
So there's pluses and minuses there.

00:39:05.001 --> 00:39:11.530
Uspsa again is about people think of it as like raw speed, and it is.

00:39:11.530 --> 00:39:18.577
But you also got to get good hits, because nobody wins matches with misses and penalties all over the place.

00:39:18.577 --> 00:39:19.661
That just doesn't happen.

00:39:19.661 --> 00:39:26.628
Idpa is that, but maybe not quite as Formula One-ish.

00:39:26.628 --> 00:39:34.887
I don't know what a good analog for that would be, but the rules are such that it's intended to be a little more defensive-oriented.

00:39:34.887 --> 00:39:38.958
So you have certain scenarios and you've got to abide by those scenarios.

00:39:38.958 --> 00:39:39.739
More defensive oriented.

00:39:39.739 --> 00:39:41.742
So you have certain scenarios and you got to abide by those scenarios.

00:39:41.762 --> 00:40:01.782
As far as you know, in this situation you're starting in, you know as if you're sleeping in your bed and you got to wake up and do this and do that, and you got to kind of follow these, these procedures, if you will, whereas in USPSA it's more like here's your start position, there's all the targets, there's the stage when you hear the beep.

00:40:01.782 --> 00:40:07.322
You shoot all the things in the most efficient way possible, like we're not going to tell you which order to shoot them in doesn't matter, just just go.

00:40:07.322 --> 00:40:09.436
Just go shoot them, you know, however, you think is the best.

00:40:09.436 --> 00:40:22.447
But in idpa you also have things like well, I gotta engage things in order of tactical priorities, so closer targets need to be shot before farther targets because they represent a more immediate threat, and I got to use cover, right.

00:40:22.447 --> 00:40:28.177
And so if this target presents itself first as they come around a corner, well, that's the one that's got to get shot first, right?

00:40:28.177 --> 00:40:31.105
So those things make sense and that's what appeals to some people.

00:40:31.105 --> 00:40:31.996
Is they like that?

00:40:31.996 --> 00:40:36.327
It helps reinforce some of those tactical priorities a little bit more.

00:40:36.327 --> 00:40:45.206
But here's the problem with doing that, and this has always been my big gripe with those that say that idpa is like well, it's a defensive.

00:40:45.206 --> 00:40:51.327
You know shooting sport and it helps me prepare for defensive stuff, yes.

00:40:51.327 --> 00:41:04.184
However, it still gets gamified, because as soon as you apply rules to something and as soon as you put a timer into the mix, especially people, what do they want to do?

00:41:04.184 --> 00:41:11.764
They want to be the fastest one, they want to win, and if there's incentive like that, then it's going to get gamified, guaranteed.

00:41:11.764 --> 00:41:31.085
And so that's where you see, you know, like what's a common, like a well-known rule in IDPA that many people are familiar with is well, you've got to do a tactical reload, meaning if I'm reloading in the middle of a magazine, I've got to retain the partially full magazine, and you know, and then load the next full one, but I can't drop that partial one to the ground, right.

00:41:31.085 --> 00:41:37.880
Or I've got to shoot to a slide lock and then it doesn't matter if I drop the mag to the ground, I can just do the reload, right.

00:41:37.880 --> 00:41:51.456
That's a pretty famous part of the rule set where it differs greatly from USPSA, because with USPSA I can just reload whenever I want, it doesn't matter, right?

00:41:51.456 --> 00:41:53.277
But here's where that gets gamified, right.

00:41:53.878 --> 00:41:58.382
So let's say you have a targeted array of four targets.

00:41:58.382 --> 00:42:03.648
So you're in a position and you're shooting these four targets and each one of them needs two hits based on the rules.

00:42:03.648 --> 00:42:05.869
So, okay, target one two hits.

00:42:05.869 --> 00:42:07.130
Target two two hits.

00:42:07.130 --> 00:42:08.512
Target three two hits.

00:42:08.512 --> 00:42:10.755
Target four two hits.

00:42:10.755 --> 00:42:20.456
But then I have some amount of movement and I still have two rounds left in my gun and I go you know what rounds left in my gun?

00:42:20.456 --> 00:42:20.637
And I go.

00:42:20.637 --> 00:42:20.958
You know what?

00:42:20.958 --> 00:42:27.920
I could try to, while on the move, retain that partial mag and do a tactical reload, or I could just move a lot more efficiently if I could simply dump that mag and put a fresh one in.

00:42:27.920 --> 00:42:34.340
Well, to do that, hey, I just dumped my last remaining rounds in that last target, in that target array.

00:42:34.340 --> 00:42:38.329
Right, that's not true to real world.

00:42:38.329 --> 00:42:47.001
Let's say, you know, like you're throwing extra rounds at something that supposedly doesn't need those extra rounds, but you're doing it because it's a game Anyway.

00:42:47.001 --> 00:42:48.684
So I mentioned that.

00:42:49.126 --> 00:42:51.958
You asked about differences, strengths and weaknesses, david.

00:42:51.958 --> 00:42:54.284
I'm just giving examples of these.

00:42:54.284 --> 00:42:58.123
They're all shooting sports and there's pluses and minuses, you know, and some people saw USPSA as being too much of a game.

00:42:58.123 --> 00:43:01.559
So they're all shooting sports and there's pluses and minuses, and some people saw USPSA as being too much of a game.

00:43:01.559 --> 00:43:13.123
So they're like well, let's create this defensive-oriented one and it's good in a lot of respects, but there's still ways that it gets turned into the thing they're trying to avoid, and so take that or leave it.

00:43:13.123 --> 00:43:17.043
Some people find that IDP is a better flavor for them.

00:43:19.016 --> 00:43:32.545
I like USPSA because I wanted to be purely focused on learning how to shoot with maximum efficiency, and I saw certain rules in IDPA that you had to abide by.

00:43:32.545 --> 00:43:42.675
That I didn't that definitely break the rule of being efficient, but then I had to look at it and I'm like, yeah, but I also don't agree with that as being a tactically relevant thing in the real world either.

00:43:42.675 --> 00:43:59.307
So an example that is honestly, guys, if I, if I, if I had two rounds left in my gun, uh, and somehow I know that, uh, I'm just going to dump that mag on the ground and put a fresh one in, like that's, that's, that's, that's my tactical application in the real world for me.

00:43:59.307 --> 00:44:00.969
Uh, I know some people, would you know?

00:44:00.969 --> 00:44:02.777
Like, oh, my gosh, you'd give up two rounds.

00:44:02.777 --> 00:44:03.418
It's on the ground.

00:44:03.418 --> 00:44:06.786
Now, guess what is if expediency calls for it?

00:44:06.786 --> 00:44:09.860
Uh, I, it, guess what?

00:44:09.860 --> 00:44:17.942
I'll tell trade 17 for two or whatever all day long, especially if there's a high probability that I don't even need close to 17 more rounds.

00:44:18.001 --> 00:44:35.306
So, anyway, either here or there, steel challenge strength, weakness, strength is easy to get started into, relatively low cost compared to some of the other sports, whereas some of them, like USPSA, can be a little bit more expensive to get started in.

00:44:35.306 --> 00:44:37.639
It doesn't have to be, but it certainly it.

00:44:37.639 --> 00:44:40.126
It certainly has compared to something like, say, steel challenge.

00:44:40.126 --> 00:44:47.507
Um, out of all of them that we talked about, three gun is the most expensive thing to get involved in and, like that makes sense, you got to buy three guns If you don't have them already.

00:44:47.507 --> 00:45:04.985
You got to buy three different types of ammo, actually more than that, cause you usually have stages that have bird, sometimes slugs, sometimes even buckshot, you know, so, um, so, yeah, you're both buying like five different types of ammo and three guns and all the equipment that goes with that.

00:45:04.985 --> 00:45:12.079
So, um, you need to, you know, decide which sport appeals to you the most and helps you accomplish the goals, your goals, the most.

00:45:12.079 --> 00:45:14.043
Uh, so people will look at three gun.

00:45:14.043 --> 00:45:17.340
They go, that just looks like a lot of fun, and I'm just here to have fun Cool, awesome.

00:45:17.740 --> 00:45:20.166
Or some people want to get more work with their rifle and their pistol.

00:45:20.166 --> 00:45:21.248
Well, 3gun is the place for you.

00:45:21.248 --> 00:45:22.480
It's just going to come at a cost.

00:45:22.480 --> 00:45:29.302
Some people want to get work on a rifle, but they don't necessarily do 3GUN because of other reasons, including cost.

00:45:29.302 --> 00:45:40.836
Guess what the nice thing is?

00:45:40.836 --> 00:45:41.400
You can compete in IDPA US.

00:45:41.420 --> 00:45:43.206
You can compete and still challenge with a 22 long rifle, rifle or pistol.

00:45:43.206 --> 00:45:44.954
So that's another reason why, uh, still challenge is such a good one to get started.

00:45:44.954 --> 00:45:53.041
From a cost perspective, uh, especially not just the guns but also the ammo, because you know, everyone knows, you buy a lot more 22 than you can the other stuff.

00:45:53.041 --> 00:45:56.288
So anyway, uh, there's probably a lot more.

00:45:56.288 --> 00:46:03.824
I could go down further into that rabbit hole, but to sum it all up, they all have different strengths and weaknesses.

00:46:03.824 --> 00:46:05.360
They have different flavors.

00:46:05.360 --> 00:46:27.172
My big one is I like choosing to compete in a sport that is sanctioned by an organization, because with that comes consistency in rules, consistency in application and the ability to see, kind of, how I stack up in a broader data set, rather than just comparing myself to my three best friends that I shoot with locally all the time.

00:46:27.492 --> 00:46:29.574
Anyway, Okay, All right.

00:46:29.574 --> 00:46:38.315
Well, next question would be how much, if any, does competition shooting help you train for potential self-defense events?

00:46:38.315 --> 00:46:43.067
And then also, are there any negatives that could lead to training scars in those said?

00:46:45.195 --> 00:46:51.541
Yeah, I can go real deep on this too, but I think this is actually one of the questions I can answer most simplistically and here's how I'll answer it.

00:46:51.541 --> 00:46:55.699
Here's how competition shooting helps you train for a potential defensive event.

00:46:55.699 --> 00:46:57.141
Helps you train for a potential defensive event.

00:46:57.141 --> 00:47:05.690
It helps you because competition shooting, more than anything else I've seen, helps people in two big ways.

00:47:05.690 --> 00:47:18.927
One learn how to shoot at a truly high skill level, because you won't be competitive unless you truly learn manipulations, shooting fundamentals, all that.

00:47:18.927 --> 00:47:23.146
You've got to have that down pat if you're going to be even remotely competitive.

00:47:23.146 --> 00:47:25.661
I'm not saying that to try to scare anybody away.

00:47:25.661 --> 00:47:32.487
Here's the cool thing Most of the time, if you enjoy competing and you start doing it, you're like, hey, this is fun, I want to get better.

00:47:32.487 --> 00:47:39.467
All of a sudden you're encouraged to practice a little bit more and next thing you know you're, you're getting better.

00:47:39.467 --> 00:47:43.505
So, like competition shooting just helps people become better shooters, period.

00:47:43.505 --> 00:47:45.777
And I think that's a that's a great thing.

00:47:45.777 --> 00:47:46.539
And guess what?

00:47:46.539 --> 00:47:51.679
Does that help you in a self-defense event to be a better shooter, 100% Like.

00:47:51.679 --> 00:47:56.579
Ain't nobody I know has been in a gun fight before say they wish they had less shooting skill.

00:47:56.579 --> 00:47:58.690
You know than know than more right.

00:47:58.690 --> 00:48:03.643
So, like, having more skill is always a good thing, um, so that that's.

00:48:03.643 --> 00:48:04.606
That's the first big thing.

00:48:04.626 --> 00:48:19.606
The second big thing is is that shooting competition helps you also start to incorporate, uh sort of I guess multitasking would be one way of explaining it along with a shooting application.

00:48:19.606 --> 00:48:25.320
By that I mean there's a lot going on If it's a USPSA or an IDP stage especially.

00:48:25.320 --> 00:48:30.608
First of all, you've got numerous different positions you've got to navigate your way to.

00:48:30.608 --> 00:48:36.719
You've got different obstacles in the way walls, barrels, no-shoots, friendly targets, etc.

00:48:36.719 --> 00:48:39.063
Balls, barrels, no-shoots, friendly targets, etc.

00:48:39.063 --> 00:48:43.907
You've got all these things going on that you've got to be aware of and understanding.

00:48:43.907 --> 00:48:45.588
You've got to know where you're at with things.

00:48:45.588 --> 00:48:48.291
You've got to know where it's safe to point your gun and not point the gun.

00:48:48.291 --> 00:48:52.559
Your gun handling has got to be on point.

00:48:52.559 --> 00:49:07.949
If you have a malfunction somewhere along the way, you're still thinking but I've got to get over here and shoot this target, or I'm in the middle of shooting these three targets and now have malfunction, and so you're being asked to do all of this multitasking, which equates to thinking while you're shooting and running a gun.

00:49:07.949 --> 00:49:27.284
That translates very well to helping people manage stress in a self-defense event and it can be a controversial thing to discuss because they'll be like, ah, that's different, it's different than real world and real world stress is different.

00:49:27.284 --> 00:49:27.746
Stress.

00:49:27.746 --> 00:49:31.445
It's pretty eye-opening when some of your good friends, like mine.

00:49:31.545 --> 00:49:33.938
One of my best friends is Matt Little of Graybeard Actual.

00:49:33.938 --> 00:49:38.135
If you don't know who Matt is, he retired from Chicago PD.

00:49:38.135 --> 00:49:43.237
At the time he left he was their training coordinator for their entire SWAT team.

00:49:43.237 --> 00:49:52.900
So this is like one of the largest and busiest SWAT teams in the country, if not in the world, and he was a part of that elite unit right.

00:49:52.900 --> 00:50:01.744
Simultaneously of running that career, he was also in the Army National Guard in one of their special forces groups National Guard.

00:50:01.744 --> 00:50:15.070
There's two of them, I think he was in 20th group, which came along with fairly regular and frequent six-month deployments or less overseas to Middle East for the bulk of the global war on terror.

00:50:15.070 --> 00:50:21.614
Matt also happened to retire from from from the U S army, from from special forces.

00:50:21.614 --> 00:50:34.184
Okay, so the dude, seen it on the tactical side in both military and law enforcement, becomes a civilian, of course, when he retires, starts teaching classes, is you know, becomes a passionate about concealed carry stuff.

00:50:34.184 --> 00:50:45.347
He's also a USPSA and IDPA masterclass competitor, so he kind of sees this whole picture right, cause he's experienced a lot of things that not like he's the whole package.

00:50:45.347 --> 00:50:47.824
In other words, it was.

00:50:48.034 --> 00:50:51.746
It blew my mind when I heard these words come out of Matt Matt's mouth one day.

00:50:51.746 --> 00:51:00.824
He said you know, I'm stepping up to the starting position of a USPSA stage is more stressful for me than being in actual combat.

00:51:00.824 --> 00:51:01.710
Wow.

00:51:01.710 --> 00:51:03.907
And I was like what?

00:51:03.907 --> 00:51:07.097
Like well, you know, he's like to be fair.

00:51:07.097 --> 00:51:18.550
When you've been in combat for basically the last 20 years on both the streets of Chicago as well as Iraq and Afghanistan, he's like that kind of becomes the norm.

00:51:18.550 --> 00:51:22.425
This thing here that I got into competitive shooting is kind of scary to me.

00:51:22.425 --> 00:51:26.905
I was like man, that is quite the perspective.

00:51:26.905 --> 00:51:42.396
But I've also heard out of Matt's mouth and I also throw another name to you Bill Blowers, another friend of mine runs a company called Taprac Tactical and he's a retired SWAT cop out of Washington state.

00:51:43.820 --> 00:51:48.070
Uh, kind of um, you know, seattle, tacoma, up in that area.

00:51:48.070 --> 00:52:02.943
Um, bill Blower has actually just said the other day in a Facebook uh comment something the effect of how he he's not super passionate about competing himself, but he's done a little bit of it and he's also sought training with competition shooters.

00:52:02.943 --> 00:52:13.867
Because what they, what he witnessed on their SWAT team, is that their tactical, their ability to perform in a tactical environment improved as they took.

00:52:13.867 --> 00:52:25.284
What they could learn in terms of performance shooting from that A lot of times is what's learned in competition shooting, and so some pretty interesting perspectives there.

00:52:25.284 --> 00:52:30.967
And those two guys are not the only ones that share that perspective, not even close.

00:52:30.967 --> 00:52:38.842
Then you realize and a lot of them won't talk about it whether it's an NBA type thing or just out of respect for the men and women in uniform, whether it's an NDA type thing or or just out of respect for the men and women in uniform.

00:52:38.842 --> 00:52:49.085
But you know a lot of your top guys uh, rob Latham, jerry Barnhart, from back in the day, and I think he still is on contract teaching the for the for department of defense.

00:52:49.085 --> 00:52:52.237
Uh, brian Nelson is doing some instructing.

00:52:52.237 --> 00:53:09.458
He's, he's a world champion, um for for the US Marine Corps, I mean Delta, you know Special Forces groups, navy SEALs, all the different.

00:53:09.458 --> 00:53:14.043
Like all these guys have at some point hired competition shooters to come teach them how to shoot better.

00:53:15.898 --> 00:53:20.076
So that's how I answer that question is does competition shooting help you train for potential self-defense event?

00:53:20.076 --> 00:53:27.021
Yes, because it helps you actually learn how to shoot really, really well, which makes all the tactical stuff easier.

00:53:27.021 --> 00:53:29.422
Because, guess what, I don't have to do with it.

00:53:29.422 --> 00:53:52.750
It's as if I I just think it and it happens because it's an extension of me, like that's, that's where for me, in my pursuit of competition, shooting is that's where I wanted to get to was make the gun become like an extension of me.

00:53:52.750 --> 00:53:54.983
I didn't have to think about the shooting application.

00:53:54.983 --> 00:53:57.215
I just now I'm focused on the tactical.

00:53:57.215 --> 00:53:58.728
You know solving the tactical problem.

00:53:58.728 --> 00:54:04.456
Shooting application I just now I'm focused on the tactical, you know, solving the tactical problem, and that's the same thing I've heard echoed by all these other high-level tactical dudes.

00:54:05.438 --> 00:54:09.485
The negatives there's certainly potential negatives.

00:54:09.485 --> 00:54:14.242
I think that most of those are mitigated though when we understand contextually what we're doing.

00:54:14.242 --> 00:54:31.398
I think we set ourselves up for potential training scars when we think, or we fool ourselves into thinking, what we're doing in a training environment, in a competition environment, translates perfectly over into that self-defense world.

00:54:31.398 --> 00:54:35.925
I think we need to keep things in their appropriate silos, if you will.

00:54:35.925 --> 00:54:44.739
So competition shooting primarily helps me get really good at manipulating and shooting my gun without thinking about it, like get it to a subconscious level of shooting a gun.

00:54:45.219 --> 00:54:46.523
Does it teach me tactical stuff?

00:54:46.523 --> 00:54:47.505
No, it doesn't.

00:54:47.505 --> 00:54:51.521
So where do I need to get my tactical training and application from?

00:54:51.521 --> 00:54:56.137
From tactically specific, you know, training, okay, it's two different.

00:54:56.137 --> 00:54:59.143
It's two different things, not that they have to be two different worlds entirely.

00:54:59.143 --> 00:55:00.525
There's crossover, for sure.

00:55:00.525 --> 00:55:00.947
It's just that.

00:55:01.407 --> 00:55:02.235
Where do I learn shooting?

00:55:02.717 --> 00:55:05.626
I learn shooting from shooting and from competition.

00:55:05.954 --> 00:55:07.041
Where do I learn tactics?

00:55:07.041 --> 00:55:11.378
From something that's focused on teaching and training tactics?

00:55:11.378 --> 00:55:22.697
That's why I'm a little bit cautious about the whole idea of using IDPA as a self-defense kind of oriented training mechanism.

00:55:22.697 --> 00:55:33.766
I would be careful not to think that, because there's still things about it that is a game and I wouldn't just no, just treat it as a competition shooting sport.

00:55:33.766 --> 00:55:46.967
Learn how to get good at it, learn how to get good at shooting your gun and then go take your appropriate like, whatever it is, because some of us are cops or some of us are military or some of us are just civilians looking to get quality training.

00:55:47.467 --> 00:55:57.894
Take the courses that are going to teach you all the tactics-oriented stuff thing.

00:55:57.894 --> 00:56:06.315
So just make sure you keep those like you got, to keep your goals in line with the training you're actually taking and not, you know, mislead yourself into thinking that this thing over here trains this thing over there.

00:56:06.315 --> 00:56:09.103
No, no, it's a.

00:56:09.103 --> 00:56:09.626
It's a.

00:56:09.626 --> 00:56:11.599
Oh, what's the word?

00:56:11.599 --> 00:56:13.646
Event diagram?

00:56:13.646 --> 00:56:16.682
You know, tactics are over here, shooting's over here.

00:56:16.682 --> 00:56:18.115
There's other stuff in the mix too.

00:56:18.115 --> 00:56:19.260
Is there overlap?

00:56:19.260 --> 00:56:26.748
Yes, but where am I going to do best learning this stuff from those that focus on that exact thing?

00:56:26.748 --> 00:56:29.041
And where am I going to do best at learning this Over here?

00:56:29.041 --> 00:56:36.039
Okay, and just understand where they overlap and understand what the context is, so that you apply yourself accordingly.

00:56:36.619 --> 00:56:42.784
Okay, all right, I've been going on for a minute, but can I just give one quick example, because I think examples are good.

00:56:42.784 --> 00:56:46.967
I actually just had this conversation yesterday and it just popped into my head.

00:56:46.967 --> 00:56:54.273
Somebody was saying how back in the day they took a bunch of training at Mid-South, which I think they're still in operation.

00:56:54.273 --> 00:57:07.309
It's a pretty well-known training academy that's trained a lot of high-level military dudes and this course they took was like five days it was with competition shooters, so learning how to shoot really good.

00:57:07.309 --> 00:57:23.579
And what he remembered was that over those five days he was taught to hey, when I'm drawing my gun, I'm going to start prepping my trigger as I'm kind of presenting the gun to the target, because that's a little bit more efficient.

00:57:23.579 --> 00:57:34.141
So this is a great example of I express my interest in being more efficient as a shooter, but I also have to remember that there's important context that I got to fit things in the appropriate boxes here.

00:57:34.141 --> 00:57:35.686
So this is a really interesting example.

00:57:35.686 --> 00:57:47.244
He said that he spent so many reps that week learning to draw and prep the trigger and then fire a shot that he found it difficult to train himself out of doing that and he was concerned that on the job.

00:57:47.244 --> 00:58:04.474
You know he would have a situation where it was warranted to draw his gun and that he would accidentally go ahead and fire a shot because he was you know, he had sort of built in this muscle memory, so to speak shot because he was, you know, he had sort of built in this muscle memory, so to speak, of prepping that trigger and I was like, well, I can see that that as being a valid concern.

00:58:04.474 --> 00:58:09.123
However, I see that as being a like.

00:58:09.523 --> 00:58:13.530
The onus is on you to understand and start applying.

00:58:13.530 --> 00:58:30.561
You know certain contexts because even me, as a now primarily in terms of my you know certain contexts because even me, as a now primarily in terms of my you know pursuit of skill, competition-focused shooter, I understand there's a time to draw a gun and fire and there's a time to draw and not fire, right, right.

00:58:30.561 --> 00:58:33.635
And in my dry practice you know what I do.

00:58:33.635 --> 00:58:35.681
There's times I do dry fire and I draw and I go to the target and I press the trigger immediately.

00:58:35.681 --> 00:58:36.384
There are times I simply just draw.

00:58:36.384 --> 00:58:39.032
There are times just draw, dry fire and I draw and I go to the target and I press the trigger immediately.

00:58:39.032 --> 00:58:40.961
There are times I simply just draw.

00:58:40.961 --> 00:58:44.525
There are times, just draw and go to low ready, okay.

00:58:45.155 --> 00:58:57.431
So, like, the onus is on us and probably on us as well as instructors to make sure we're also communicating, like, hey, in this class we're focusing on this thing here, but it's a limited, you know, it's only a small piece of the pie.

00:58:57.431 --> 00:59:06.139
You need to understand, students, that you also need to be practicing these other things and so you can say that, well, this gave me a training scar, okay, yeah, that may be true.

00:59:06.139 --> 00:59:09.423
However, like you got to understand what your personal context is.

00:59:09.423 --> 00:59:15.965
Me as a performance shooting focused instructor, I don't always know exactly what my individual students contexts are.

00:59:15.965 --> 00:59:18.121
Right, but you're a law enforcement officer.

00:59:18.121 --> 00:59:21.481
Think about how you do your job on a day-to-day basis.

00:59:21.481 --> 00:59:22.778
Have you ever shot anybody on the job?

00:59:22.778 --> 00:59:23.762
Well, no, not yet.

00:59:23.762 --> 00:59:26.338
Have you ever drawn your gun on the job?

00:59:26.338 --> 00:59:27.163
Yes, I have.

00:59:27.163 --> 00:59:30.155
Okay, think about how that went down.

00:59:30.155 --> 00:59:31.782
Lay out those scenarios in your mind.

00:59:31.782 --> 00:59:33.822
Incorporate that into your dry practice.

00:59:33.822 --> 00:59:39.326
Okay, don't always do dry fire where you draw and press the trigger right, simple as that.

00:59:39.326 --> 00:59:43.282
So training scars all right.

00:59:44.324 --> 00:59:51.981
Um, most experienced shooters at these events are most likely willing to help you instead of make you feeling inadequate, aren't they?

00:59:51.981 --> 00:59:58.282
Or that's at least my uh experience in the idpa arena whenever I shot a little bit of that.

00:59:58.282 --> 01:00:03.503
It's a great group of people and I don't know.

01:00:03.503 --> 01:00:05.547
I think some people have the.

01:00:05.547 --> 01:00:14.838
Well, I don't want to go and embarrass myself or feel put down or anything and just kind of piggyback off of that.

01:00:14.838 --> 01:00:16.585
See what, what your thoughts are.

01:00:16.585 --> 01:00:24.768
As far as the willingness of the other shooters to help out, uh, I've heard many stories I agree.

01:00:24.788 --> 01:00:32.289
I think that by and large, uh, the competition shooting communities are incredibly welcoming and helpful and friendly.

01:00:32.289 --> 01:00:34.094
Um, are there exceptions?

01:00:34.094 --> 01:00:35.378
Of course there are, you know.

01:00:35.378 --> 01:00:36.960
And are there jerks there?

01:00:36.960 --> 01:00:50.297
Yeah, I mean, that's true of pretty much anything you do, but more than about anything I've done, the competition shooting communities are just incredibly welcoming and helpful.

01:00:50.820 --> 01:00:55.539
So the very first three-gun match I showed up to they didn't require an orientation class.

01:00:55.539 --> 01:00:57.797
I'm like, hey, here's a match Sign up.

01:00:57.797 --> 01:00:59.704
I didn't know what I was getting myself into.

01:00:59.704 --> 01:01:20.510
I did know that I was going to probably be lacking in some respects and so I showed up to that match and fortunately not a camera, if it was advice of a friend or if I just, you know, if the thought just started asking around, hey, who's the match director?

01:01:20.510 --> 01:01:22.480
Oh, that's Mike, he's over there.

01:01:22.480 --> 01:01:27.686
So I found Mike and I go over and talk to Mike and I'm like, hey, mike, first time here, never done this before.

01:01:27.686 --> 01:01:29.394
Not that I'm a total idiot.

01:01:29.394 --> 01:01:32.960
At that time I had law enforcement experience.

01:01:32.960 --> 01:01:35.742
I post instructor already, handgun and rifle.

01:01:35.742 --> 01:01:37.085
I kind of express that to him.

01:01:37.085 --> 01:01:48.235
Like you know, I generally know how to handle, handle a gun, but this is definitely my first competition, my first rodeo, uh, so anything?

01:01:48.235 --> 01:01:48.516
I should know.

01:01:48.516 --> 01:01:49.398
He's like hey, man, just be safe.

01:01:49.398 --> 01:01:51.099
Uh, don't do anything crazy, just have a good time, be safe.

01:01:51.099 --> 01:01:51.541
And I'm like so.

01:01:51.541 --> 01:01:53.302
And then at that point I'm like hey, thanks, appreciate it.

01:01:53.302 --> 01:01:58.170
Now some people might've viewed that as not being super helpful because they might have wanted a little bit more hand-holding.

01:01:58.170 --> 01:02:08.317
But I took that advice to heart and was like okay, I'm just going to be safe and I'm going to have a good time.

01:02:08.317 --> 01:02:11.358
And so I didn't try to get too crazy with anything or push myself beyond my limits and go too fast.

01:02:11.358 --> 01:02:18.603
I just made sure I was aware of muzzle direction, trigger finger discipline, all that and shot the targets and had a fun time.

01:02:19.684 --> 01:02:21.864
But as I was talking to him, I did have the question.

01:02:21.864 --> 01:02:29.128
I said, hey, so I've got a belt here, I've got a holster, I've got pouches for rifle and pistol mags.

01:02:29.128 --> 01:02:34.572
But I know that you guys do some reloading on a shotgun on the fly, but I have nothing for that.

01:02:34.572 --> 01:02:43.155
He's like no problem, I got you.

01:02:43.155 --> 01:02:45.443
He goes in his, in his pickup truck, pulls out of a bag, uh, a, uh, uh, I think it was a 10 round shot shell carrier.

01:02:45.443 --> 01:02:51.346
And you know he clipped 10, 10 shot shells into this thing and he's like here you go, you can use it for today and, uh, just give it, give it back to me when you're done.

01:02:51.346 --> 01:02:54.869
Awesome, put that on my belt, get my shot shells in place.

01:02:54.869 --> 01:03:00.032
Had never practiced reloading, you know shotgun, before, like that, especially in the way they do it in competition.

01:03:00.032 --> 01:03:05.320
But you know, just super helpful, super friendly, like willing to hand off gear.

01:03:05.855 --> 01:03:09.826
Most of us, or I should say many of us, travel to matches.

01:03:09.826 --> 01:03:11.219
Like, here's my competition belt.

01:03:11.219 --> 01:03:12.023
This is my main one.

01:03:12.023 --> 01:03:18.242
I have two or three of these that I sometimes it depends on if I'm flying or driving to a match.

01:03:18.242 --> 01:03:23.947
If I'm driving, I almost always have spare gear with me.

01:03:24.007 --> 01:03:24.771
And why do I do that?

01:03:24.771 --> 01:03:26.581
Well, because I saw somebody else do it.

01:03:26.581 --> 01:03:30.639
I was like, oh, that's, it's sort of like this development of culture within the community.

01:03:30.639 --> 01:03:32.786
You see, other people help people out, like that.

01:03:32.786 --> 01:03:36.320
You're like, ah, good, good idea, I wasn't, you know, I'm so focused about on myself.

01:03:36.320 --> 01:03:38.824
But now, hey, community, right.

01:03:38.824 --> 01:03:44.521
And so next thing, you know, you, you, you know, um, my old belt, cause I decided I liked something else better.

01:03:44.521 --> 01:03:48.619
We'll take the old belt, have it handy, you know, lend it to the next person that might need it.

01:03:48.619 --> 01:03:58.637
Uh, whole, extra spare holsters, belts, pouches, um, mags, um.

01:03:58.637 --> 01:04:05.518
I had an incident last year where, due to an unfortunate car fire I experienced while traveling, I didn't have any of my ammo and I was expected to shoot a match.

01:04:05.518 --> 01:04:06.101
The next day.

01:04:06.101 --> 01:04:10.503
A friend in the community was like hey, bro, I got you showed up.

01:04:10.503 --> 01:04:12.755
That next morning he's like here's 500 rounds.

01:04:12.755 --> 01:04:18.543
So, yes, incredibly helpful, welcoming community.

01:04:18.543 --> 01:04:19.697
Are there exceptions?

01:04:19.697 --> 01:04:22.440
Yes, but they're the exception, not the rule.

01:04:22.943 --> 01:04:26.481
Okay, all right, crystal, you had some questions for him.

01:04:26.481 --> 01:04:29.262
No, because he pretty much touched base.

01:04:29.262 --> 01:04:36.244
The one that I just was curious about was how do you transition from competition shooting to real-life scenarios where your life is on the line?

01:04:36.244 --> 01:04:40.110
But pretty much went over that with the examples you gave.

01:04:42.016 --> 01:05:16.166
Yeah, you know so, and I'll just say this too, and this is just speaking for me and not necessarily anybody else I certainly know competition shooters that, while they also believe in the second amendment and they probably have a concealed carry permit and they may very well carry, you know, concealed or otherwise, throughout their day to day lives that's more of a casual thing for them, whereas I'm very, I'm very serious about concealed carry and the practice of that, and so I can't speak to what anybody else really does or how they approach it.

01:05:16.166 --> 01:05:18.739
But I know that you know there's a spectrum there.

01:05:18.739 --> 01:05:37.809
So, but but most of the even for as involved as I am in competition shooting nowadays, people probably think that I do a whole bunch of dry fire, uh, from, you know, using using my competition setup and using my competition gun, and all that, um, actually most of my dry fire is done.

01:05:37.809 --> 01:05:59.867
All that, um, actually most of my dry fire is done from concealment, uh, with the same holster and the same gun that I carry for self-defense on a day-to-day basis, and so, um, that's, that's one of my approaches, crystal, is that most of my actual practice, uh, especially the dry fire environment, is more oriented to the self-defense side of things.

01:06:02.235 --> 01:06:10.539
And then you know, over the years I've taken a lot of different training classes and, like I was saying a minute ago, like you want to make sure you keep things in their you know appropriate respective buckets.

01:06:10.539 --> 01:06:17.615
But I have taken a few more competition-focused classes in the last couple years.

01:06:17.615 --> 01:06:26.275
But over time I've had a pretty good mix of where it's like, hey, this is a really interesting class, it's a little bit more performance shooting or competition focused.

01:06:26.275 --> 01:06:30.559
Let's go take that and let's learn how to get better at competition or get better at just shooting period.

01:06:30.559 --> 01:06:33.577
But then it's like, hey, look, here's this class with Dave Spalding.

01:06:33.577 --> 01:06:38.869
Dave Spalding is well-respected, you know for, uh, you know his, he's retired now.

01:06:43.554 --> 01:06:44.858
But um, I've taken two classes with Dave Spalding.

01:06:44.858 --> 01:06:45.378
They're very defensive.

01:06:45.378 --> 01:06:47.161
You know tactics, focused or oriented classes.

01:06:47.161 --> 01:07:01.208
So, um, yeah, just, uh, you know, think about what your personal goals and needs are and and then just do what you got to do to just make sure you're being honest with yourself as far as what you, what it is you're actually accomplishing and what you're working towards.

01:07:01.208 --> 01:07:03.697
And don't you know kind of mix.

01:07:03.697 --> 01:07:05.300
Those don't mix.

01:07:05.300 --> 01:07:07.382
Like I said, don't go.

01:07:07.382 --> 01:07:13.411
Don't go take a competition class and think you're preparing yourself for you know tactics, and so on.

01:07:17.077 --> 01:07:21.976
You got anything else, david, I'm good, how about you?

01:07:21.976 --> 01:07:22.918
Crystal, anything else, I'm good.

01:07:22.918 --> 01:07:24.280
How about you crystal anything else?

01:07:25.101 --> 01:07:26.925
all right can I touch on on one thing there.

01:07:26.925 --> 01:07:38.184
Crystal, I think you had a question here that you'd sent me that said um, are there specific skills or strategies from competitive shooting you find particularly useful and self-defense, and vice versa?

01:07:38.184 --> 01:07:54.143
Oh yeah, I think I'm uniquely qualified to answer because I've spent a lot of time working on this and it's actually become a core component of my curriculum that I teach my class, that I teach now the primary one that I go on the road and teach.

01:07:54.143 --> 01:08:00.940
It's called Pistol Intelligence and it's a shooting class, a performance shooting class.

01:08:00.940 --> 01:08:11.137
It's intended to teach people how to shoot their gun at a high level, or how to get to that high level, hopefully eventually right by teaching them these various skills in that curriculum.

01:08:11.137 --> 01:08:23.358
Um, one of the big things that competition shooting and performance shooting has helped me and I think helps other people learn how to do is how to.

01:08:23.358 --> 01:08:43.171
Actually it's how to process visually information at a much higher rate or speed, because you have so much going on, like when you're pushing the envelope of performance, of what you can do with a gun in your hand with respect to.

01:08:43.171 --> 01:08:59.494
I mean, I'm always looking at a stage and trying to break down, like how can I see and how can I shoot that target just a little bit sooner and a little bit faster than the other guy right, just a little bit sooner and a little bit faster than the other guy Right?

01:08:59.494 --> 01:09:03.399
When you're, when you're looking at it from that perspective, it's what you start realizing, especially the more you do.

01:09:03.399 --> 01:09:10.523
It is, yeah, there's some, there's some movement stuff involved, there's some some physical, you know technical things that are involved that are a part of that.

01:09:10.523 --> 01:09:21.979
But at the end of the day a lot of it starts coming back to what you're actually seeing and what you're actually doing with your eyes.

01:09:22.020 --> 01:09:28.470
And I never took a defensive shooting oriented course that really did much with that vision related, you know visual processing type stuff.

01:09:28.470 --> 01:09:46.261
But it's something that gets talked about quite a bit in competitive circles Because again we're pushing this envelope of performance, because again we're pushing this envelope of performance, and so that's kind of one of the driving factors behind me writing the pistol intelligence curriculum was to start.

01:09:46.261 --> 01:09:58.390
I had this desire to share with the defensive oriented communities some of these lessons we can learn from competition shooting, especially on the vision side.

01:09:58.390 --> 01:10:02.212
And so I really did a deep dive and still I'm learning all the time.

01:10:02.212 --> 01:10:25.926
I've got books and all kinds of studies and research articles and things that I've gone through and that I continue to go through because I'm trying to stay up to speed on the science of it all the time, just trying to understand how our eyes work and how that translates into what we do, especially in a self-defense event and there's some really interesting stuff out there, you know.

01:10:25.926 --> 01:10:34.081
So a couple things just to kind of scratch the surface and sort of like here's the tip of the iceberg, because there's a lot there that you can.

01:10:34.081 --> 01:10:40.355
I mean, we can do a whole podcast hour or two just talking about this one thing.

01:10:41.338 --> 01:11:09.192
But just give you one example of a study that the Core Science Institute did together with some law enforcement out of the UK and they took basically their rookie cops and they took their SWAT team level guys and they were trying to see what was different in terms of performance in these different force on force scenarios between you know, again, guys, guys and gals just out of the academy.

01:11:09.192 --> 01:11:27.822
And then guys and gals have been doing it for a long time and are, well, you know, have a high skill set, have a high skill set, and one of the big, big, big, big takeaways was what they did with their eyes, what they actually looked at and what they were actually seeing and processing, and the one thing that you can tell that you know for sure from that study.

01:11:27.822 --> 01:11:40.789
There's other takeaways, but one big defining thing was that the experienced cops tended to be, and remain, target-focused throughout the duration of the event.

01:11:40.789 --> 01:11:47.148
The rookies, on the other hand, were target-focused until their gun came up into view and then they started trying to find their sights.

01:11:47.148 --> 01:12:09.279
Now, that's a good thing that they were trying to find their sights, but the problem was it caused them to have other failure points, which included not seeing that what they thought was a threat ended up not actually being a threat, and so they had mistake effect shootings, whereas the experienced guys stay target focused and even when they were shooting, were target focused.

01:12:09.380 --> 01:12:15.015
And guess what I didn't use, I didn't used to know that this was possible and I won't and I wouldn't have learned it except in competition shooting.

01:12:15.015 --> 01:12:18.206
But I shoot iron sights, target focus.

01:12:18.206 --> 01:12:21.622
I've learned it, except in competition shooting, but I shoot iron sights, target focus.

01:12:21.622 --> 01:12:30.465
Now, that doesn't mean I don't see my sights or don't use them, but but I they're, they're, they're in my view, and I'm aware of them and I'm aligning them and doing all that, but they're blurry, but you gotta learn some.

01:12:30.465 --> 01:12:39.643
You know tips and tricks of how to be able to shoot target focused, even with iron sights, right and so, um, even with iron sights.

01:12:39.643 --> 01:12:51.033
And so there's just a couple kind of again scratching the surface, and there's a lot of things I dive into in my curriculum to teach people how to see better, because the better you can see, the better you can shoot.

01:12:51.033 --> 01:13:00.765
And also the other thing that it translates into is the better you see, the better decisions you make, and that's probably the more relevant thing in the self-defense side.

01:13:04.322 --> 01:13:16.345
Well, if anybody wanted to get in touch with you questions for competition, shooting or some of your training how would they get in touch with you and where could they find you?

01:13:17.475 --> 01:13:23.338
Yeah, so the quickest, easiest thing is go to Riley Bowmancom.

01:13:23.338 --> 01:13:25.823
Uh, RI L U Y B O W M?

01:13:25.823 --> 01:13:26.002
A?

01:13:26.002 --> 01:13:26.664
Ncom.

01:13:26.664 --> 01:13:33.028
Um, that's my personal website but it has links to everything else, Um, you know.

01:13:33.028 --> 01:13:36.217
So you, there's a contact form there If you want to reach out to me and get in touch with me.

01:13:36.217 --> 01:13:37.582
So please feel free.

01:13:37.582 --> 01:13:40.037
You can also see my training calendar there, If you want to.

01:13:40.037 --> 01:13:41.662
You know, check me out, come train with me.

01:13:41.662 --> 01:13:53.467
And also, concealedcarrycom is just kind of the home place for all things business related, and pretty much you know from there it goes out into the other brands and businesses that we operate as well.

01:13:53.467 --> 01:13:55.658
So that's two options.

01:13:55.658 --> 01:13:59.744
But if you directly want to get with me, RileyBowmancom, Hope to see you there.

01:14:00.426 --> 01:14:01.988
All right, sounds good.

01:14:01.988 --> 01:14:04.381
Final question for you.

01:14:04.381 --> 01:14:06.402
You've had a little bit of time to ponder it.

01:14:06.402 --> 01:14:13.567
What's your favorite activity or what do you do to de-stress from the daily routines?

01:14:14.748 --> 01:14:19.038
Yeah, I love reading and studying.

01:14:19.038 --> 01:14:30.832
So yeah, if I want to stress, I've got a whole big library of books and very few of them are for pleasure reading.

01:14:30.832 --> 01:14:42.729
I'm so passionate about trying to expand my own knowledge, understanding on some of the topics that I'm passionate about.

01:14:42.729 --> 01:14:43.270
So, yeah, reading a book.

01:14:43.270 --> 01:14:44.274
I listen to a lot of audio books.

01:14:44.274 --> 01:14:45.717
Those are quite distressing for me.

01:14:45.717 --> 01:14:50.747
I enjoy consuming books via audio, but I also enjoy reading as well.

01:14:50.747 --> 01:15:00.599
It's rare I pick up a paper book, but it's not uncommon to see me with my iPad in my lap, with a, with a, an ebook, I guess, on the screen.

01:15:00.658 --> 01:15:03.045
So Okay, all right, that's what.

01:15:03.085 --> 01:15:03.305
I do.

01:15:03.867 --> 01:15:05.279
All right, that sounds good.

01:15:05.279 --> 01:15:25.072
Well, I appreciate your time today, riley, and thank you for being a guest and talking to this to us, about the competition shooting arena, and look forward to maybe having you back home for future topics or diving into some of the topics that we discussed here a little bit later, if you don't mind.

01:15:25.072 --> 01:15:30.002
So we thank you, we thank you and we hope you have a wonderful day.

01:15:30.002 --> 01:15:34.314
Thank you, thank you.

01:15:37.778 --> 01:15:41.697
The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only.

01:15:41.697 --> 01:15:48.282
The content is not a substitute for professional self-defense training, legal advice or consultation with relevant authorities.

01:15:48.282 --> 01:15:55.659
Listeners are encouraged to seek guidance from qualified self-defense instructors and legal professionals to ensure that their actions align with local laws and regulations.

01:15:55.659 --> 01:16:04.203
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01:16:04.203 --> 01:16:08.480
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