When it's 35 degrees outside it's probably not what one would call ideal conditions for shooting. When you're talking Texas, where anything in the 30s is not the norm, let alone 40s, it's definitely not ideal shooting weather. And it's really not what you want to experience if you're taking a shooting class that will have you out on the range, and freezing, for two solid days. But that's what I got to experience this past weekend when Gordon Carrell invited me to participate in his Pistol II class at the ImpactZone on the northwest side of Houston. I had been trying to jump into one of Gordon's classes ever since he gave me a tour of the Comp-Tac facility - where he is the General Manager - and explained how they were constantly eliminating inefficiencies through analytics. Gordon has a gift for being able to see what you're doing wrong, or inefficiently, and provide you with feedback on how to improve it. As he likes to joke, he can't make a holster for you (Comp-Tac is a fast growing holster maker) but he can tell you how to manufacture it faster, finding costs savings along the way. Besides having a keen eye for manufacturing production, Gordon also has a strong sports background. His degree is in physical education and he played football up through college. So his eye for analysis is likely more a function of a natural coaching ability. This explains why he likes to instruct. Gordon's coaching style of instruction really appeals to me, especially knowing how well he could diagnose problems and correct them. My shooting is fraught with problems, almost all of which I have zero ability to self diagnose. Now, I know how to shoot, and at times shoot well enough to exhibit some promise. But when it comes to applying that limited ability to, say, something like competition, my shooting breaks down and I am lost as to how to correct it. I spend most of the time asking, "what am I doing wrong," with no ability to answer the question, ultimately spiraling downward into a pit of frustration and despair. A pit of frustration and despair, I tell you. And yes, it is that ugly. So, despite temps in the mid to low 30s, I was looking forward to learning from Gordon how to not just improve my shooting, but to understand my shooting. Though the cold really did suck.

Everybody was bundled up during Gordon Carrell's Pistol II class as a record-breaking cold front hit Texas the same weekend as the class. Photo: P. Erhardt

One of the most important things I learned in the class was that knowing 'how' to do something isn't as important as understanding 'why' you do it. Any instructor can show you how, but without the full understanding of why, you're left without the tools needed to diagnose your problems. The best example I can give from the class was a drill that had us shooting two 10" steel plates positioned about 11 yards apart. We shot these from approximately 10 yards back, on center, because, according to Gordon, 10 yards is the distance at which your shooting problems begin to manifest themselves. Anything closer tends to hide the full extent of your mistakes. The purpose of the drill was to demonstrate a variety of things, such as stance, grip, sight picture and trigger prep. But most importantly it was to show us how to transition from one target to the next at the fastest possible speed - a speed well outside our comfort zones. Having shot the Steel Challenge back in 2011 - and having failed miserably - I was all about this drill. I understood steel plates, mostly how to miss them, but I understood them, nonetheless. After correcting my stance, and forcing me to pivot from my knees and hips - and not from my waist - Gordon had me banging the plates back and forth, all while transitioning as fast as possible. I think I started the drill with something around a 0.79 second transition (while missing) and got down to as low as 0.39 second transitions with consistent hits. To put this into better context, in about five minutes Gordon had cleared away the fog of not understanding my misses, and I stepped off the line not just knowing what I had been doing wrong by understanding why it was causing my misses. I can't emphasis the understanding part enough. I came off that line knowing I could hit the target, not just because I had hit it, but because I understood why I was hitting it. And with the final five or six rounds of the drill, I was shooting confident in my ability to take the shot and hit the plate, all while driving the gun off the target as soon as the shot broke (not at the report of bullet hitting steel). Without the understanding of 'why' you shoot a certain way, you open yourself up to questions when you start missing. You know you can hit the target because you have hit it before. You just don't know why you're missing right now. When you can't answer those questions of why, you begin getting into your own head, and in my case completely destroying my mental game. This is what Gordon's 'performance analysis' is all about. He's a huge advocate of performance analysis because it not just helps you to unlock the 'why' of how you shoot, but it provides you with a system to diagnose yourself, teach yourself and test other methods to confirm whether or not they work for you. Anybody can tell you their ninja-like method is the best, and there are plenty of videos on the interwebs claiming as much, but you can confirm something works by doing the performance analysis. This pretty much makes a shot timer, a pen and a piece of paper your most valuable tools when it comes to improving your shooting.

The shot timer never lies. Gordon Carrell reviews splits and transitions on the timer, a key tool in tracking and analyzing a shooter's performance. Photo: P. Erhardt

Performance analysis is something all the top shooters utilize. The problem is that not all of them can explain to you or me - Joe average shooter - how to apply that information. Gordon explains it clearly and with ease. And it's here where he separates himself from other instructors. There are a great many instructors out there pitching their services. Everything from the 'who's this guy I never heard of calling himself an instructor' to the 'oh-my-God he won the All World Shoot-A-Palooza so he must be great' instructor. Some parrot the shooting philosophy of others. Some trade off their own cult of personality. Still others take the professorial approach and just like to pace back and forth in front of the class listening to themselves speak while the students hang on their every word. When it comes to selecting an instructor, it's your money, so spend it however you wish. But, if you ask me, I'd say sign up for one of Gordon Carrell's classes and really learn how you are shooting, and how you should be shooting. He coaches you through the process, because, you know, he's kind of a coach. He just happens to be one that also has a national and a bunch other titles to his name. Coming out of a class and really understanding the fundamentals of the shooting process, and how each individual fundamental impacts your overall skill set, is simply enlightening. - Paul Erhardt, Editor, the Outdoor Wire Digital Network Got shooting sports news? Send us an email at info@shootingwire.com.