The teaching method at A Great Start Shooting School

All right. So, hey everybody, I'm doing this live because I'm afraid that if I just video it, that I won't remember to upload it as I do with so many of my training videos. There's a lot that I owe you guys, quite honestly. So anyway, hi, welcome to A Great Start Shooting School. My name is Brooke Cheney. I am the owner instructor here at A Great Start Shooting School. I've got a lot of new customers these days, and it made me get the same questions over and over again. And so I realized, I'm like, let me talk about learning. And that is actually why I had this up first. When people come to me, they are usually brand new with firearms, and they pick up a gun, I correct them on what they're doing. Like, I don't understand, why don't I just get it? And so I have this poster in my room that says 3,000 to 10,000 reps is what you need to create a new skill. Now, after doing this for over a decade, I can tell you people come in here and I think they've watched too many movies where people pick up the guns and shoot things and it just works. And that could happen. However, it's unlikely that that's really gonna be how things go. I don't know about you, but I know I've watched some significant action adventure movies where I'm just like, ooh, That looks like that'd be cool. Maybe I would do that if I was in the same situation. Unless you train, nothing like that's going to happen. It is a proven fact in an emergency situation, you are going to react to the lowest level of training that you have, not the highest. And so many people have firearms and don't get training, or at least not professional training. A lot of folks have been shooting all their life,, and they've been fine, and they're just doing whatever their dad did and their grandpa did and all of that. So here at Red Star Shooting School, I'm a competitive shooter, and because I'm a competitive shooter, we are scored on efficiency and accuracy. So as a competitive shooter, what we teach and what we work on is being as efficient as possible. And here's the thing I love about that. Is that because I'm being as efficient as possible when I'm teaching you your 3,000 to 10,000 reps, I'm teaching you the least amount of things that you need to do. When people pick up a firearm— and hopefully I'll be all right with this— when people pick up a firearm— that was a, um, yeah, pack of cards— they try to figure out how to hold it. So here you can go look at the other videos. I have a grip video and I'm very specific. Index finger goes on the frame, fingers wrap around. Voilà, this is the first part of your one-handed grip. Then for the other part, thumb goes up, thumb goes here, palm and fingers, and that is your other, um, so With that, we do the exact same thing every single time. And by doing that, you get to your 1,000 to 3,000 reps, or 3,000 to 10,000 reps, that much faster. And you're doing the least amount of stuff versus picking this up, putting in your hand, figuring out where it goes, and then putting the other hand here and figuring out how you're supposed to hold it. And so I'm very, very particular about how I teach you even just to touch the gun. One of my mentors said, every time you're touching that firearm, it's a training opportunity. It doesn't matter if you're cleaning it, taking it apart, putting it together. It's like every single time you have that firearm in your hand, it's a training opportunity. So when I see people just sort of pick things up just and throw and not do it purposefully, these are the things that here at Great Search usually you don't get to do. However, here's a reality. One size never fits all, right? So another great teacher that I had taught me, um, whoops, I want to do that. Take what serves you and leave the rest behind. The way I teach is one way to learn. It's not the only way to learn. For me, it's the most efficient way to learn because I've taken out all the fluff and made it very simple. However, what's hysterical to me is other people would come be like, wow, it's too complicated because I break it down into all the little tiny pieces. So, uh, one of the challenges some people have is they go with their friends who've been shooting all their lives but have never had formal training. And can they shoot? Yes, but they forget how much stuff they're actually doing. And so when you come here, I'm breaking it down for you in the little tiny pieces. So you go step by step by step. So it's repeatable, it's efficient, and you can repeat it over and over again. That'd be the repeatable part, right? Repeatable, efficient, repeatable. Because we do everything forward and we do the same thing backwards over and over again. Because that was another one of my coaches who taught me to do everything forwards and then come back and do everything backwards. And that way, now I'm getting 2 reps for doing 1 thing, right? So Um, one of my other favorite things is trust but verify. And like I said, I am not the only way— this is not the only way to train, but I am definitely of the work smart, not hard mindset. I want to do the least amount of stuff. I want to teach you as a brand new shooter the least amount of stuff to, um, be able to take care of things. So, and that is the idea. All right, so like I said, I've just had a bunch of new students as of late, and apparently I'm losing my voice now. Should make it fun for Suicide Prevention Saturday tonight. But, um, keep it simple, straightforward, repeatable. Do the least amount of stuff to get your gun up on target and make you think about each one of the things you're doing in sequence. Because first we pick up the gun and load it, we create our grip, we create our stance, then we get ready to shoot. Then when we come off of our target, we're taking the gun apart as far as unloading. And each one of these things is 5 or 10 steps in and of itself, and that's what we chunk into pieces. And that would be another thing that I was taught in the past is chunking is how we remember stuff. If I said 8608668355, What are the chances you're going to remember those numbers? And if you don't know, that's just a phone number. 860 is our area code, um, 506 is the 3 numbers, and then there's a dash and it's 7901, which is not the number I just told you before. But did you even remember that, right? So that is the idea behind learning here at a Great Start Student School. Break it down into the pieces. Make it repeatable. When something is brand new, you're not supposed to figure it out. And that is the other thing that I find interesting about my new students. They come in like, I want to figure it out. I'm like, you're paying me— hey, pink hand waving! Hi, Krabby! Um, you are paying me to teach you and break this stuff down. You are here because you can't figure it out on your own. I mean, you could, you absolutely can figure it out on your own, Goodness knows there's 5 million things that allow you to figure it out on your own here in YouTube world at the very least. But, um, like I said, my thing is very methodical and it's learning how to handle the gun safely. That is our number one goal when you're brand new. Now there's a lot of people want to come and shoot 1,000 rounds. If that's your thing, then I'm not your instructor. Once you can handle the firearm safely and handle any firearm safely, then we can get to shooting 1,000 rounds. But that's not how I start. I know some of my other wonderful instructor friends are like, you only shoot 10 rounds during the course of an hour? I'm like, yes, because every single time you're pulling the trigger, you're learning something. I'm teaching you trigger control, I'm teaching you sight picture, I'm teaching manipulation of the firearm because I had my permit for almost 30 years. And sorry, 20 years, 25 years, I didn't know how to handle a gun, but I could shoot it. I could pull the trigger over and over again. However, my confidence and my ability to enjoy shooting didn't come until I learned how to safely handle the firearm. So that is what we focus on here at A Great Start Shooting School. It's how to safely handle your firearm, and then we work on the marksmanship stuff. So that's it in a nutshell. Krabby, I will see you back here at 9 o'clock, another 3 hours. And, um, first use our Brendan Saturday. And thanks for popping in. I'll see you guys later. Bye.