Students Shooting Handguns...

In Hapkido, a part of the curriculum is concerned with defense vs firearms. In my opinion, if you don't know how the things work (on a general level) your ability to handle them (from a self-defense perspective) drops sharply. As such, at least once a year I take my students (those who are interested) out and do a firearms familiarization class with them. They learn about handgun nomenclature, action types, revolvers vs semi-automatics, and we take several apart and see how they work.

We then cover the basics of stance, grip, trigger control, sighting, and breathing, and they work with AirSoft guns for awhile, continually demonstrating the ability to handle handguns safely and responsibly. After that, we head to the range, and they get a chance to do some shooting. All students (thus far) find it interesting, most (actually, all but one since I first started this) really enjoyed it, and several students have gotten hooked and eventually got their own handgun.

Lately, two of my students have come out shooting several times, and are interested in perhaps doing some competition shooting (USPSA-style). One in particular has been out shooting 6-or-so times in the last 3-4 weeks.

Bear in mind that she had never shot a handgun before we started a few weeks ago. Here is a little video of some of the things that she can do now...



Not too shabby for a beginner, hmm?