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Fundamentals of Defensive Shooting

Building Fundamentals

Over all the years that I have been trained in firearms, everything boils down to developing strong fundamentals. In my experience even as a Navy SEAL I have noticed that most, if not all people, I’m guilty of this, are so eager to skip the boring fundamental drills and go straight to the high-speed drills and techniques because it looks cooler and it’s more stimulating. But this is just a temporary emotional fix, jumping into drills and techniques that you aren’t ready for will set you up for failure. I have personally fell into this mindset when I was a young Navy SEAL, I was eager to be high-speed, I thought I was good because I did some basic drills in BUD/s and SQT, at the time in my mind I wanted to skip the boring drill and go straight to the action. Looking back now that was a wrong mindset, I quickly learned that I wasn’t as good as I thought, but that mental switch turned me into the thinking shooter I am today, I’m going to go over the techniques and lessons I have learned over the past 12 years on how to build a strong foundation to make you become a great defensive shooter.


 Build Your Foundation

Maybe you have never touched a firearm or you have some experience with firearms but just not quite confident or you find yourself doing advance drills you see on the internet that you aren’t ready for, or you could be an advanced shooter with tons of experience but may fall victim of skipping practice of your fundamentals. I don’t care what experience you bring to the table everything boils down to consistent purposeful practice of shooting fundamentals will make you a great shooter. Below are the techniques I’m constantly practicing, thinking of, and teaching whenever I am at the range.


Shooting Stance

How you stand while you shoot will make a difference on the accuracy and your effectiveness while putting lead down range. What I teach is put your feet should with apart, with your weak leg slightly forward, putting you in an athletic stance, ready to handle recoil management and move fast and affectively if necessary. I keep my left leg slightly forward because I’m right dominant, this feels natural to me, so I recommend do what feels comfortable for you because there isn’t one size fits all, but keeping your legs should width, slightly bent, and in an athletic stance, this will set you up for success that will trickle all the way up your body through the gun all while putting accurate rounds on target.


Your Grip

Your grip is one of the most important fundamentals of shooting, and this is the most common issue I see in individuals. Whether your right or left handed all these techniques apply, for my example I’m going to describe a right handed shooter. What I teach is 60%/40%, the 60% is for the dominant hand, In my case my right hand. I’m grabbing the pistol high on the grip and apply 60% of my grip strength with my dominant hand on the grip of the pistol. My left hand (non-dominant hand) apply the other 40%. I place my left index finger up under the base of the trigger guard in line with my first knuckle, I wrap my left hand across the grip, making contact with my right hand. My thumbs are stacked on top of each other and facing down the slide of the pistol, creating a clean natural point of aim. My arms are extend out but not fully locked out, I have a slight bend in my elbows to help with recoil management, and I’m flexing my chest and arms in ever so slightly to help me even more with recoil management, enabling me to keep my sites on target effectively.


Sight Picture and Sight Alignment

The key to aiming and effective shot placement is to properly align your sights, proper sight picture, Front site focus, and be able to keep your sights on target with little to no movement all while pulling the trigger. This is a lot easier said than done and takes hours of practice to be effective. Sight picture and sight alignment are sometimes taught as one and the same, but it is important to know that they are two different and distinct fundamentals.

Sight alignment

This is the relationship of the front sight and rear sight. Your eyes must be lined up with the front sight and rear sights positioned so that the alignment is correct. Proper sight alignment of the two sights means that the top of the front sight is vertically centered in the NOTCH of the rear sight, so there is equal amount of white space on either side of the front sight post. This also means that the TOP of the front sight is LEVEL horizontally with the TOP of the rear sight. There are many different types of sights, this is just a general guideline that will apply to most types of sights. No matter how the sights are configured, the front sights are designed to be placed on the same axis as the rear sight.

Sight Picture

This is the placement of your aligned sights on the target. Once you have everything in alignment, front sight and rear sight now the question may come to mind “Where do I place my sights now in relation to the target?” It depends, especially on what you are aiming for, typically guns are sighted in for a hold that requires the shooter to place the front sight where it covers up the center of the target (center mass, or head shot). Putting this all together now, we have to focus on sight alignment, sight picture, and front sight focus. However, the human eye can’t focus on 3 objects at the same time at different distances. For the most accurate shot placement my advice would be to focus on the front sight, keeping the rear and target out of focus. When you use an acceptable site picture technique this means that your primary focus in on the front sightt this may be in part of the proximity of your target for quick shots. Regardless of technique each has its place and can be used for certain situations but the foundation to practice on is to train front sight focus this technique will instill good habits to which you can build on.

 

I hope this post gives you insights on how to properly aim your firearm, giving you a perspective on sight picture, sight alignment, and front sight focus. This is by no means all inclusive as there are many different techniques, but this will give you a good foundation and understanding to basics of firing your weapon and what you need to focus on every time you conduct training.

 

If this was helpful or you would like me to write about something else or expound on this article, please comment below or email me.

- Travis Kennedy

#THINKINGSHOOTER

My Journey

THE FIRST CHAPTER

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For the past 12 years I have been serving in the United States Navy as a Navy SEAL. As I sit here and reflect over my career in the military it brings a smile to my face and a sense of happiness and fulfillment. Ever since I was in high school I knew I wanted to serve my country in a capacity that would set me apart from the norm. As soon as I caught wind of what SEALs were and what their mission set was, I was immediately hooked, and from that point I made it my life goal to become a United States Navy SEAL. I joined the Navy in 2006 and ended going to Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/s) training in the summer of 2007, and successfully became A SEAL in February of 2008. From there I went to SEAL Team Four where I served on two combat deployments to Afghanistan. I was then stationed at BUD/s where I was an instructor, here I had the honor to teach and mentor future Navy SEALs, It’s at this duty station where I learned the importance of what a good teacher and mentor could bring to the table, this duty station was one of the most fulfilling times in my career. After my time was done at that command, I went back to SEAL Team Four as the Leading Petty Officer of a platoon, there I had the honor to lead 16 other SEAL operators through a year and half long training work up into a 6 month long deployment to Colombia. After those two years I was then stationed at Naval Special Warfare Training Detachment Two, there I was the Leading Chief Petty Officer of Special Operations Urban Combat Training Division. Here I had the honor to lead and mentor 8 other SEAL instructors, where we all taught urban tactics, tactical shooting, direct action target assaults, and leadership development.

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CREATING SOMETHING OF MY OWN

To put things into perspective, I am dreamer at heart and am always setting high goals for myself, I have had the desire to always have something I could call my own. At the close of my term as BUD/s instructor I began contemplating on separating from the Navy. I had this gut feeling I wanted change but at the time I just didn’t have the means or the vision to really run with that feeling at that time. So I ended up going back to the SEAL Team Four, then onto running the training division. through those four years I really honed in what exactly I was looking for and what i really wanted out of life because to me it’s about what makes you happy regardless of what you do. I finished my degree in Criminal Justice during that time and aligned all my finances so when it was time to separate I would be good to go. Fast forward to March 2019 I packed all of my belongings into a storage unit and moved out to Southern California. My ultimate goal was to create something of my own, my own business but before I moved I didn’t quite know exactly what type of business.

CREATE YOUR PURPOSE

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As I got settled here in beautiful California I ended up taking some of my friends and my fathers friends out to the range and we shot and I taught them some skills and I began to think, I love to shoot, I love to teach and watch people grow and better themselves, this is what gives me happiness. So I began to brainstorm with my father and I created something, I created “Kennedy Defensive Shooting”. The moment this name came to light, it put a smile on my face and the fire ignited in me to really make something of this. Now here I am full steam ahead with this, I am going to make this happen, I’m going to work hard regardless if times get tough because I know they will, but that’s how we grow and learn.

If I could leave you with one piece of advice from this post is to pursue your goals no matter what, even if you have to make sacrifices because at the end of the day you will succeed if you work hard and stay focused. Don’t let your own fears or outside negative influences steer you on the wrong path.

Thanks

Travis Kennedy

#THINKINGSHOOTER