The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Mike Seeklander of Shooting-Performance.com

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

www.shooting-performance.com

You're listening here to pay the end. You're paying back the stability here. I'm great man, thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. No problem. Right off the top, I thought an interesting question to ask a guy like you would be, what do you think that, I guess you could call the community at large, preppers? What do you think preppers are getting wrong about shooting and firearms? Man, that's a great question. And I would have to admit that it

depends on what preppers we're talking about. It's a great answer. I had some exposure to a buddy of mine who did some training for a prepper group a long time ago. And he showed me some of the stuff that he was encountering with this particular prepper group. And it was very, it was very gun centric, meaning they were they were they seemed to be very much geeking out on the gear and flashlights mounted to everywhere and things and squiggles and stuff like that. And they were very low on skill.

Now that was that particular group. Sure. I've met some people that that self proclaim that they're preppers that are pretty well trained and highly capable. Like I gave you I'll give you a great example of a short story. I had a kid show up to class one time. And this kid and his father were what I would call preppers. They were just serious self-defense enthusiasts. I'm pretty certain they had some property somewhere in Oklahoma.

I guarantee they prepped and had food and had all kinds of different things. And this kid, he came to class with this wore-out Glock 19, and he was a phenom with it, like his manipulation skills, his shooting skills, everything about him. And I'm like, man, who are you? What do you, what level do you shoot at? Have you ever, he's like, I've never shot a match in my life. I just train. And I'm like, man, well, wherever and however you've been training, you got it right. So it really, I guess it just depends, man. I don't want to label the community in the least. But I but if I had to pick something,

it would be being too gear-centric instead of being skill-centric. Yeah, that's a good one. I think that most people would agree with that, particularly in our community. We are a mixed bunch because we do have a lot of people who come from backgrounds, whether it be military or alios, stuff like that,

who already have training under the belt. And then there's a big chunk of people, you know, who just slide into it, you know, and I guess to your point, yeah, big, big, big difference in that in that those group dynamics. But you know, the funny thing on the on the other side of that is I could say to your community that the firearms, maybe the large firearms community is too firearms centric. Like they think that the gun and the firearms are going to solve all of their problems and they probably have an interest, you know, food or shelter, fitness and medical supplies and being able to use their medical kits and stuff like that. So I think there's two sides to that coin, you know?

Yeah, that is the weird battle, man that I face and I know a lot of our listeners and a lot of probably people in your Shin shooting communities to who have won some modicum of preparedness is like Like how do you manage time? I'm not looking for an answer from you, but you might be a good guy to based on what I know about you thus far It's like how do you manage time to build out all these kinds of skills? You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know man. It's gotta be some sort of system of prioritization and then then managing your time as good as you possibly can. That's the question of the day man.

That's like the golden nugget there. If someone could tell me really truly how to manage my time effectively the golden nugget there, if someone could tell me really, truly how to manage my time effectively and what I should be focusing on in a preparedness kind of world, then that's the ticket right there. Yeah, that's the tough part. It's almost like a video game. We have a certain amount of points to spend on certain skills and things like that. The only difference, of course, is that we have lives too, right, on top of that. You and I are probably... I don't know completely what you do for a living, but I know you said you spend a lot of time at the range So I feel like people like you and I are a little bit blessed because we have

We don't have an eight-hour day that we've devoted to another person streams. You know what? I mean, like At least our at least our work life can be built around this stuff, too But for the average guy, it's like yeah, I got to get through In the preppy in in the preppy At least our work life can be built around this stuff too, but for the average guy, it's like yeah, I got to get through In the prepping in in the prepping podcast community. We're always trying to figure out like what the barrier is That keeps people from making the jump Because we know now that there's just so much Information about why you know for a long time we used to think maybe they're just

haven't seen anything. You know what I mean? Like haven't seen anything crazy or something crazy hasn't happened to them. But like we've crossed all those bridges now. You know, so we're always trying to figure out what pushes people to get from watching news to reacting and then preparing and all that kind of stuff and

I think a lot of it does come down to that Micah. It's a grind out there for the average person, you know, and I Guess a day on the range is well, you know I mean speaking personally a day on the range is not something I do as often as I should either, you know Yeah, I tell you man My hat is off to the the folks out there that do work those, you know, 8, 9, 10, 12-hour workdays and still find time to train and prepare and whatever else. I mean, I mean, I'm blessed. If I'm not traveling and teaching, I mean, I can jump on the range anytime I want. Like, tomorrow morning at sunrise or right after, I'll be on the range training for, you know, a period of time until I have an early afternoon meeting. And I'll be, I'll be, I'll work hard at it. I mean, I'm getting ready for a world championship, and I'll work hard at it. I'll be tired after I'm done. But I can only imagine trying to accomplish the same things that I'm doing after 8 full

hours of work, whether that's physical, you know, some sort of blue collar, or labor, or in an office setting. I just, man, I respect that more than anything. And I did it, I did in the past, but, hmm. It's a grind. Yeah. It's hard to fault them, you know what I mean? And you see things happening around the world, and you wonder why people aren't prepared. And that's what we've come, the conclusion we've come to is for most people it's like I can't even go there right now like I got problems I got to deal with the kids and the you know dinner and all that kind of stuff and before you know it today's over it is why I don't know many people in our community that get into the competitive shooting aspect of things and there was a time when I was looking at three gun kind of like as a... What I see competitive shooting being really good for our people is

it adds a level of... you gotta go do it. You know what I mean? And I think that's really what a lot of people need in our community is not like, you know, go shoot the gun once every three months when you have nothing else to do and you go to the local gun range. But if you're training for something, preparing for something like you do, like in the competitive shooting world, then I do feel like that could be really helpful. But I know nothing about it. Like, what does it take to get started in something like that could be really helpful, but I know nothing about it. What does it take to get started in something like that?

That's actually a great question and it's a great point. I would say to you and your audience, man, the first thing is if you can get into it, it's like gamifying anything. It makes it more interesting. It makes it, if you can get some sort of passion and interest in it, it's like a snowball, man. And the great news is once that snowball starts rolling, you know, if you want to be better prepared with a firearm, you know, shooting competitively, assuming you're doing it from some sort of logical standpoint and you understand it's a game and it's not Exactly like some of your defensive training you're gonna be you're gonna be so much more skilled and here's the interesting thing You know both of the primary sports uspsa and idpa now idpa the international defensive pistol association It's made for self-defense type training

but both uspsa and idpa allow shooters now to wear appendix type style rigs inside the waistband, carry gear. I mean, IDPA was designed for carry, a very simple carry type system. So it would probably be the direction I would point most newer shooters. It's simpler, it requires less gear.

It tends to rely more on the use of cover and different props, you know, but it is a gamey. But, man, but both of them, here's the interesting, those of, you know, your folks out there that are carrying on a regular basis, more than likely, they could probably go to a match and with not much altercation or alternating their gear, they can shoot a match. They could literally shoot it from their actual carry gun system. And they guess what they get to experience not just, you know, some fun and some, you know, some collaboration with like

minded shooters, but they get to see if they're able to do what they think they can do with their handgun under stress, man. That's a key question. Can you really do it with just a timer going beep and some people watching you? Yeah. Well, I mean, at the end of the day, from our community standpoint, it really is a life or death kind of thing. And not even from this perspective

of doing something heroic, but I think of making a critical error. That's right. You know what I mean? That's what I always think about is people, sure you carry your gun every day because you've committed to that aspect of it. But once you pull that thing and start firing in chaos,

are you going to see people behind the target and what's beyond it and all that kind of stuff? Yeah. And at least you would have some modicum of pressure from from a competitive shooting Well, you know and the thing about it is in competitive shooting people may look at a stage You know like it may be a stage where they have a seated and there's multiple threats and non threats And it's like a maybe a restaurant type scenario and they may watch something like that I think that looks so complex and those shots are so hard

But think about the reality of what you may have to do in real life. You may be literally in a restaurant and the targets are not going to be stationary. They're going to be moving and panicking and you're scared to death. So, you know, if you can start to learn and apply some of those skills in a competitive environment, it's simply going to translate over to your real-world defensive use of the firearm if you ever need to. It's going to make you a better shooter. It's going to make you a better gun handler. It's going to show you where you break down under stress when the timer goes off and you just lose it. Literally, well guess what, folks? We have some work to do. We've got to get the gun in our hand more often, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, so if you were to show up to an event, like,

I guess, a beginners-esque event with four handguns exclusively, what kind of a loadout would you need as far as, like, extra magazines, rounds of ammunition, that kind of stuff? Yeah, so with IDPA, you literally would need your primary firearm and probably three magazines total. So typically you're going to have a holster on and then two mag pouches or a dual mag pouch. So the gun and three magazines will get you through any stage you're going to shoot, depending on the division you're going to actually shoot. And granted, if you showed up with an extra mag or two, that'd be great, because you could have them preloaded and be ready to rock and roll. But you could literally, assuming the holster's safe, it covers the trigger guard. You can draw and re-holster safely and stuff like that. That's really all you need.

USPSA tends to be a little bit more complex than the gear required. You're probably going to need four or five mag pouches. You're going to see most USPSA shooters, you know, shooting from some sort of a race rig, but that's not across the board. There's some high-level competitors now, believe it or not, shooting USPSA from appendix position, and they're guys shooting IDPA from appendix position with more carry type holsters. But the sport of IDPA requires, you know, very simple gear, man. Like something you could buy, you could get an XDM out of the box with a whole set of mag pouches they give you.

And I'm not promoting that gun because I don't shoot for them. But that's a good example of you could pull that gun out of the box and go to an IDK match and be fine. Is there a, you say three magazines, but is there like a standard of rounds that everybody had? Well, I don't know if everybody, but guns vary. Magazine size rounds per magazine, that stuff varies.

Yeah, so the different divisions will require a different round count. For example, in IDPA, they have the bug division. They have CDP, Custom Defensive Pistol Division. they have the ESP, Enhanced Service Pistol Division, and each of those divisions have a different magazine limit. But most of what you'll find is between 8 rounds and 15 rounds in IVPA. So the highest division is going to be a 15-round magazine. Most of the divisions are going to be a 10-round magazine. And magazine. And if you have high cap magazines, you would just download them to 10.

You could start with 11 in the gun, but you would download the rest of your magazines to 10 rounds. So everybody's across the board on the same playing field. Now, USPSA, you may show up and see guys with a carry optics division, Rick, which is one of the matches I'll shoot this year. And they may have 22 rounds in the magazine, like three or four major

magazines, you know, they'll shoot 32 round field courses where I think IDPA is limited to 18 rounds on any given course of fire. So what are you've been at it a while. What, what does a day look like for you in one of these events in terms of like the, the weapons that you will use and bring and it's sort of the courses you'll face that kind of stuff. Yeah, man. So I will tend to compete with whatever gun is suited to the match I'm prepping for. So prepping there, I use your word, right? So like right now I'm shooting exclusively my Wilson Combat AR style PCC pistol caliber carbine because we have an ECC WorldShoot coming up in two weeks.

So I have literally been shooting a nine millimeter carbine for six months now in a very high volume. And then after that, I'll switch directly over to, some sort of what we call carry optic setup, which might be a SIG 320 Wilson Combat variant or Glock 47 or 34 variant with an optic on it and get ready for the carry optics division in both IDPA and USPSA.

And then in the past, I would have shot primarily what we would call ESP, which is with 1911 single stack, nine millimeter. Of course, I shoot for Wilson Combat. I've been sponsored for them for I don't know how many years now, 12 years. And I just love the classic 1911. I carried a compact 1911 and competed with the 1911 on a regular basis. So what I'm shooting will really depend on the major match coming up and probably the national championship. I shoot a lot of mid-level matches, but most of what I prepare for is a national level or world level event right now. But I shoot a lot of club matches too. So a club match would be,

you show up at your local club and you shoot a three to six stage match. It's going to be probably 20 or 30 shooters, maybe upwards to 70 or 80 shooters, all the way up to a world championship where we're going to be probably 20 or 30 shooters maybe upwards to 70 or 80 shooters all the way up to a world championship Where we're gonna see probably six hundred and fifty to seven hundred and fifty competitors So how do they? What is the like the mechanism for points and judging is it hit and not hit or is it? Yeah Like so can't tell where a bullet hits it

Yeah, there are two there are two primary scoring methods one is called hit factor and that's with USBSA hit factor is it's not terribly complex but basically it's it's your the points you USPSA target has an A zone, a C zone, and a D zone. IDPA target has a zero zone, a one zone, and a three zone. And with USPSA, the center of the target, center mass, because it was originally a defensive sport, is the highest point value. So you're typically gonna shoot two rounds on each target. Sometimes it's three. Sometimes it's more So the more points I shoot on the target in less time

The better my hit factor score becomes right and IDPA they use what they call time plus scoring So it's much simpler So it's basically if you shoot a course of fire and you shoot it in 10 seconds and you shoot all of the zero down Scoring zone, which means you're not adding any time to your run, well, then you would have a 10 second score. If I shoot a 10 second run, but I shoot several down ones, and several outside in the outer edge like the down three zone, for every one of those, I add a second to my time. So if I dropped five ones and two threes, you know Then I would have had 11 points or 11 seconds added to my score or you would have shot a 10 second run I would have shot a 21 second run and you would have firmly beat me

So there you know center mass is best they have headshots, you know, which is pretty much anatomically correct for a defensive type You know situation, but that's how the scoring the two major sports are man Sounds like a lot of fun It is man. It's addictive. I'll tell you many years ago I used to I was trying to promote my defensive handgun book And I was out selling my defensive hanging in book by a long shot by my competition in a book and then in the funny Thing about that was I finally figured out later is because the hobbyists will tend

to spend money on the thing they they love their hobby right sure those that are carrying guns you know they tend not to realize they they probably need more training than the competitive shooters but anyways one of my little tricks to get people into competition was to give away one of my books this is many years ago for free just to get people to go to their first match because I knew and remember I was trying to hook them into a match but I was really trying to make them better defenders. This was actually right after one of the big mass shootings that I don't remember where

it happened but it happened somewhere and I was trying to promote more gun carriers, more, more skill or whatever else, but I knew if I could get them hooked on competitive shooting, they would dramatically improve in skill. It would be their thing. It would be their golf game. They would do it more, man. And, and I think it was successful for, you know, several years, but that was a, that was kind of my hook.

I think that, uh, if you haven't competed, try it. There's no downside. Show up, watch a match first if you want to. The people there, 99% of the time, they're gonna be super friendly. They'll loan you gear, they'll help you out, and whatever else. Yeah, it definitely sounds like something

that needs to go on my own short list for sure Yeah, man, do it. It's there's no downside. Yeah, I've got two boys too and especially my oldest I could definitely see him getting into it Yeah, they'll probably excel faster than you because they got the hand-eye coordination and all the different things the young kids have so no Yeah, definitely so I guess out of that the the writing of the defensive handgun book or defensive rifle Was that around the same time that you started kicking off the American warrior podcast was it all kind of like culminating from that event or was that already hidden works? Yeah, that was it

That's a great question So I actually the first book I wrote was my competition hanging on book and then later on I decided because I was in law enforcement and the military teaching a lot of Tactical stuff always doing you know defensive BJJ full-contact karate all these things at the same time I was competing and I'm like well, man, you know, there are literally Hundreds of thousands of carry permits out there and hundreds of thousands of people carrying guns. So let me write the defensive handgun book.

And then later on, of course, the AR-15 was popularized because everybody thought they were going to be outlawed. And everybody went and bought one. And I'm like, man, people need to know how to use this thing. So I wrote the defensive rifle book. And it was probably two or three years later after I had produced the book and then I did the videos that show the drills.

I'm like, let me do an all inclusive thing where I could put all of this defensive information into one area. And that was the American Warrior Society, which spawned the American Warrior Show podcast, which I'm like, hey, we should do a podcast. This was before there were, you know, as you know 9 million podcasts Oh, yeah. So yeah, so that's what that happened Yeah, it's a good idea man. It's a good idea. I looked through some of the archives I've seen you even had some some like knife fighting guys on and all that kind of stuff I thought it was a it's a great idea to have a show like that for people to listen to you know, a lot of times or at least nowadays that the

realm of self-defense seems to be becoming dominated by Well, it's really kind of like UFC and Special Forces guys, you know what I mean or boxers to some degree and You know what? I like the concept of getting information outside of those realms, you know in particular just because you know what I like the concept of getting information outside of those realms you know in particular just because you know because people learn things different ways go through different things and You know that you can always glean something new from somebody Yeah, you've got 400 episodes over there 399 I think episodes right? I don't know what it is now man to be honest They don't have to look it up, but you're you're exactly right though

One of the things that we we challenged ourselves to do was to have all kinds of different skill sets like you know I mean I knew I had the firearm stuff covered although we've had top-level world champion handgun shooters top-level world, shotgun and rifle shooters, you know, because, you know, as you go on, you just realize that there's probably something to learn from each of these individuals. But we, I made myself hit the medical. I've got multiple shows on medical. Like you said, we've got a bunch of edge weapon,

you know, defensive knife kind of shows with Michael Ganish and a couple of other guys, all kinds of fighters, man, you know, hoist Gracie, when are the first UFC was on the show? Oh, was he really? I didn't see that one. Yeah, it was crazy was on our show strength coaches, you know, so anybody kind of in that area has been on the show at some point in time, or at least as much as we could reach and try to, you know, pull them into our audience.

So have you ever contemplated contemplated some kind of annual routine or something for people to stick to? I didn't know you trained martial arts, too, so you probably have a pretty good feel for what people should spend their time doing in regards to self-defense overall. Yeah. Yes. One of the great things about the American War Society Vault, we call it the Vault, it's our online content area, is there's

there's all these training tracks, right? That's also one of the downsides, there's so much stuff and so many training tracks. I think a lot of people get in there and like, they're like, what, Mike, what do I do? And if people don't know what to do, then they do nothing, right? They don't learn at all. So we actually have a pretty neat tool in there. It's a survey. Basically, it's like an Excel spreadsheet survey

that my partner in crime, Rich Brown, did. And it allows you to go through and answer all these questions. And then it kind of rates you on your skill level in different areas. And it tells you where you're weak. But back in the day, we don't have it active right now. We used to have an email automation that

was kind of like that as well. It was like, hey, here's your weekly reminder to focus on this or that or whatever else. It's a good call, definitely. Yeah. I think we're going to do something along that line sometime soon. Basically, it would like a yearly cycle.

Like, hey, the next two weeks or four weeks, we're focusing on this specific skill set. Here's a reminder of this podcast or this article, or here's some drills to try and you know, yeah, yeah, I think it helps. I think well, I think there are certain people in the community that things like that really, really help. You know know like we do monthly routine stuff, we do some annual crazy prepper challenge stuff and there the

people who take advantage of it really take advantage of it. You know I can't say that it's a like a massive swath of people who do those things but I think the people who really hook into it gain a lot of benefit from it. I mean I started doing those routines on our side just because I needed a routine on my side Yeah, keep myself accountable, you know, like one of the things that I was not doing hardly enough. I was dry fire So we started putting that into those monthly routines to make sure So that I could make sure you know what I mean that I was doing that because you know like we talked about earlier It's damn near impossible to get it all done. So then well

Yeah, I was gonna say you're you're you are exactly right because if everything is a priority than nothing is so sometimes I think we're at a point in in society where there's so much information. Oh, yeah that you're exactly right I think that the truly interested person that wants to learn and improve themselves, they kind of need to be led. And, and I, we actually had that conversation the other day about putting something into place. It was a little bit more routine. You don't have to think about it. Just, just follow it or follow portions of it as we go through the cycle. I like that a lot. So. Yeah, I think just having that out there, even if you don't hold yourself 100% accountable, I think having those sort of Hangers on or you know a list or something along those lines. It allows you to say

I've got a little bit of extra time. Should I waste it on Instagram or should I you know what I mean? Because it's I mean, that's the reality of it, you know, I mean just the news itself I always say to the audience Mike. I always say to the audience, Mike, I always say, I think people are basically informationally maxed out by about 10 AM. And the rest is just you're running on fumes. You know what I mean? As far as what else you can put inside here,

you're just forcing it in from about 10 AM on. Because I wake up, the moment you look at this, the moment you get on this, and then you know, and everything else to talk, even talking to people now, you know, it didn't used to be that you would have a conversation with like your kid on the ride to school and be talking politics, geopolitics, what's Putin doing? You know what I mean? All this kind of stuff. I find myself talking to my 13 year old about that.

He's plugged in too You know, yeah, so it's just like wow We're so solving the world's problems at 730 in the morning and I still got to get to work Yeah, you got me thinking now too cuz I'm thinking you know, I get up in the morning I You know make it some tea or coffee or whatever then then start to consume some things. And I have I myself have, I have wanted like, I wish I had something fresh in the morning that I could look at that would give me some guidance or guide me through. I'm not even sure what I want to be

guided through. But yeah, you open it up. And it's like something, it's it's positive. It's giving me something to think about. So yeah, some sort of morning thing. I like that man. I have to wrap my head around that. You know what the one that I find always works really well, particularly from like an entrepreneurial side of things, is no noise, no silence. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like I do find like the cacophony starts to get to me at a certain point and then I just turn everything off and I'm like, oh, yeah

I forgot I can sit here quietly and go through my actual problems and things that need to get done without a podcast going on in the back or a song going on in the back I Totally agree man. I shut my radio off all the time in my truck. I'm just like I just want I just want to try Yeah, man, I just want to look and hear and think and just shut it off. Shut the noise off. Yeah Yeah, that's a tough one to pull off these days. It is really tough Yeah, finding your way in the silence is hard for a lot of people to do but it's essential man It's a set especially if you're gonna get into this kind of stuff, you know where you're gonna put outside of life You're gonna put time aside to truly train with firearms or like you said edge weapons any of that kind of stuff, you know, where you're gonna put outside of life, you're gonna put time aside to truly train with firearms or like you said, edge weapons, any of that kind of stuff. It's,

you know, it's just, you gotta carve out that piece. You gotta carve out that piece of time. How much time do you think you spend? You gotta be on that range, just ungodly amounts of hours a week. Oh man, you wouldn't even want to know. Like, like, so this is a, so in a normal year, I mean, I shoot a lot, I train a lot, you know, so in a normal year, I'm always focused in cycling through in a given week, you know, fitness, some sort of combat, or firearms, right? So I'm doing, I'm always doing all those right now.

I'm hyper focused on shooting because I have this this year happens to be two World Championships, which is a rarity. For Ipsic it only happens every three years and I'm on as an alternate on the senior division team on one and I'm actually one of the primaries on the senior division team on the on another one. So man, I am I am shooting and on the range a ton like the amount of ammo I would shoot in a week would just It would embarrass your audience probably, you know, we're talking like, you know eight or eight or nine hundred rounds You know several days per week probably four or five days a week

what do you feel like at the end of a week like that in terms of feel like at the end of a week like that in terms of Outcomes because I've never had a week in my life where I came anywhere close to shooting a thousand rounds You know what? I mean? I have to let alone day. Yeah, I'm hyper focused on the end result So every day has a specific purpose Okay, I got you and You know, I'm I'm not I wouldn't promote that for anyone else, you know, but like I said, in a normal week, I would be focusing my energies and rotating through, you know, maybe a couple days of defensive handing on maybe one day of defensive hanging on one day of defensive rifle, or maybe one day of, you know, competition stuff and one day of defensive carry stuff and then the other, you know, several days probably before the range, I would have hit the gym and worked on some element of fitness, whether it's strength or, you know, conditioning or whatever else. And then, you know, several days and I have my brain likes for whatever reason I like, I like evenness. So I like to say, for example, you know, Tuesdays and Thursdays are range days and Monday, Wednesday and Fridays are BJJ and fitness days and then Saturday and Sunday are recovery with some long slow cardio, whatever so that that would be my normal lifestyle and it allows me to stay very sharp and very fit and You know at the same time mentally energized because the training

Like I have enough ammo and I have enough time where I could literally shoot five, six, seven, eight hours a day. Yeah. There's a, I can't physically hold up to it because my hands and my arms get tired to the point where I just, I start to degrade and mentally I couldn't stay focused that much. Oh yeah, focusing on shooting for six hours

My practice sessions are intense to there, you know, I'm not staying in there and doing slow fire I'm you know, like right now in the back of my truck. I have a little ammo can with 17 Big stick block magazines 31 round Magazines are already pre-prepped They're pre loaded for tomorrow's practice session. And when I get home, then I'll shoot those and then I'll reload them and shoot them again. And what I'm working on tomorrow.

And then when I get home tomorrow in the afternoon, I'll reload them probably between my workout sets as I'm in the gym. So it's a grueling deal, man. It's like, if you're not really, really into it, like I am and driven for that kind of thing. Yeah, it would be, it wouldn't be fun. It's not, it's not, it's, it loses its glamour. The 98th time you're all by yourself early morning on the range. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. That's kind of what like to a guy like me who, if you have, you know, you, you work on things like aims, things

like site pitch, basic stuff, you know what I mean? And after time at the range, I always come away with, okay, I improved here and I need to improve there type of thing. And I always think about guys who shoot as much as you shoot, like how do you see, where are the differences? You know what I mean? Like, like you come in a beast, obviously from doing what you do. And then at the end of the week, there's got to be some takeaways where you're like, but, but they must be so minuscule or, you know, I don't know.

I always wonder about that. Well, there are tiny details and you know, for me, you know, I don't know. I always wonder about that. Well, there are tiny details. And for me, it's part of a multi-phase system, right? So I'm following kind of a system. Not that in a literal sense, like tomorrow, I have a piece of paper that tells me what to do. But I know that at this phase of training for this match, I'm in the execution phase, which means I need to be able to step up and load the PCC

and do a drill and execute it repeatably every single time. I'm not exploring anymore. I'm not trying to gain a lot of speed and a lot of accuracy, although I may be testing guns and tweaking them to the, literally the last several days, but I'm in the execution phase where, you know, 3 months ago, I was in the exploration phase. I was trying to figure out how to speed up my mile and, and how to speed up the splits on different distances of targets and split up, you know, speed up my transitioning from one target to the next target. But like you said, you know,

you think about the fundamentals, you know, grip, aim, trigger, what that feels like to fire a good shot. Where like today, for example, you know, I was working on mounting and shooting a couple shots on a target that was literally the size of about half of my face at 33 yards. And then moving and stabilizing the gun as I moved to shoot two alphas in a target that was 16 yards away or so, give or take to my right or to my left. So it's those little details over and over and over again that just helps

develop that level of skill where I can at least attempt to compete at that level. So sure. How much of that when you, so how much of what you train is going to show up at the competition? Like are those pretty standard in terms of the challenges and the scene and setting that you're going to face? Like there will be a target at 33 yards, there will be these two targets at 16. That's a great question, man. So it's a really weird deal. I mean, I've been doing this for

so many years. I have a good idea what's going to be there, but you never know for sure. So my job is to make sure I's no, I have no shooting weaknesses. Or at least I've done as much as I possibly can to eliminate any shooting weaknesses that I have. And also, I'm trying to train to the point where I'm doing things that are so hard that I hope, when I get to the match, it's easy. Now I know they won't exceed 100 yards in this particular division. I know that 90% of the targets based on the rules will be within a certain distance, probably less than 50 yards, 50 yards and in.

But I may deal with 10% of the targets that are between 50 and 100 yards, right? And they may be chest size, like my chest size, all the way down to literally a little smaller than my head You know what they call a micro target So yeah So my job is to try to eliminate those variables shoot the PCC on my right shoulder shoot the PCC on my left shoulder tomorrow morning I'm gonna be jumping down into the prone position because I may have to go low and get prone for my my old self

Which is not fun. So that's that's kind of what I'm focusing on. Yeah, that's cool, man. That's a whole other world of preparation. But like you said, it would take a person who doesn't shoot... I mean, prone is a perfect example, right? Somebody who's probably has taken how many shots... The average shooter's taking how many shots in the prone position that mattered, right? Good point. And then all of a sudden, if you're put in a life or death situation, you think you're going to drop down there and it's going to be call of duty. Right.

You know what I mean? Right. Probably not. Yeah. But yeah, I guess the competitive shooting puts you in in those strange positions that you're never in sort of like Hitting a punching bag compared to training Muay Thai. You know what I mean? That's exactly right. I always land my punches Yeah, the targets moving you can never miss right? Yeah, that's exactly right But the interesting thing is, you know that you know

Your listeners could probably apply the concept that I'm talking about in their defensive handing gun. They have certain skill sets and they have certain skill sets that in a defensive encounter, they're probably going to need. They're probably going to need to access their firearm. They're going to need to build probably a good two handed grip and they're probably going to need to shoot accurately from three to seven yards. And then you start to add different variables like should they you know should they work on their i give you a great example should

they work on their reloads and their malfunction clearance as well if you look at civilian gun fights statistically that's almost never ever happened but guess what every time you practice you got to do a reload so you might as well practice doing an efficient reload anyways. Yeah. And you need to know how to clear a malfunction just in case. So why not work on it a little bit, but, you know, prioritize those fundamental basic skills and then, Hey, if you, if you're confident in what you're doing there, then add something else.

Okay. Let's take a hand off the gun and work on a one-handed shooting. Let's get a flashlight out and go to a range that allows low light shooting or at least mimic a low light position You know, so Yeah, that's a good one In the still of the night, right? Yeah so uh

outside at shooting-performance.com is kind of where your Your world is in terms of the information that you share with people, right? And like in terms of how to go to where exactly if with people want will you travel though, too, right? Yep Yes, not even about location per se. I don't have a range. I do have a range here I can do some things that but I travel and I do classes, like a host will sponsor me and I'll come to the range and teach. I do some online coaching, I do some one-on-one coaching. But of course, as you know, I have a bunch of digital programs that are follow along, self-paced follow along. Shooting Dash Performance, you know, literally, it's, as you know, it's kind of laid out in a pretty simple format where you can see the two membership areas and go check those out. Then you can go down to the different digital programs.

And then, you know, scroll down to the articles because there's a ton. I always tell people before you buy anything I sell, check out the free stuff first. Check out, read some articles, sign up for the Pro Tips membership area, you know, and then typically what they do is say, wow, the free stuff is pretty good. And I think I'm going to try the premium stuff as well and make sure it works for me. Let's bring her up real quick so the audience can get their eyes on it. Yeah. And there's the very top of the thing. It says, join free first. I call that Pro Tips. And there's a bunch of content in there, man. Of course, you have to sign in and log in to access it. But it's, it's good. And then down below, there's the two membership areas, the defensive on the left and the competitive on the right. And then below that, maybe you just want to

look at a specific program that interests you. And you can look down there. And, you know, I have both my hard copy books you could get, or you could click on the digital versions, and you can access all of those programs digitally on a computer or iPad or whatever else you want. And then all the way on the bottom, you'll see just a ton of articles that'll keep feeding if you keep on scrolling and classes are listed there,

stuff like that. You have some merch too. I do have some merch. My Lending's on, support our man Mike here. That's right Yeah, we're about to add a bunch more shirts My buddy's printing up some stuff that we call him the man on the mountain in Wyoming right now. He's behind on the printing I gotta get some more stuff printed out sounds like the guy who started this network Yeah, he was a man on the mountain as well. Wow, you guys do have a ton. I didn't scroll this far down. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't written I haven't updated my articles. I haven't published one

for a while. I had a short one recently. But I just there's a you know, I'm actually gonna start emailing out some of my older articles. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then reinvigorate that content. Yeah, I'm not trying to pat me on the back, but you can spend a lot of time learning and I think enjoying just reading the articles on my blog and and then go from there and then when you're serious, you know if you want to get a dedicated program jump into something and then go from there I Love it man. Anything else you want to leave the audience with before we go on our I love it, man. Anything else you want to leave the audience with before we go on our separate paths? Man, no, just, you know, hey, if you, you know, we're all preppers. We just focus on different things. And if you're not really taking your stuff that I teach serious, the firearm stuff,

and if you have to use that skill set, you got some issues, you know, I would suggest that there are a lot of things you can make a mistake on in your preparedness lifestyle that probably won't cost you your life or your family's life. But if you're not, if you're not prepared, and like you said earlier, you made a great point, you know, a mistake or a mistake of fact shooting or, or pulling the gun out and, and hitting the wrong person, you person. You know, sometimes our training not just allows us maybe to defend ourselves against the person we're trying to shoot, but prevents us from not shooting the person that we're trying not to shoot. So maybe think about it like that and just train. And if you have questions, reach out to me.

I'm always doing a lot of free stuff online as well So love for people to check out my podcast and if I can help you let me know Beautiful so we've got the links to shooting-performance.com down below, but it's I mean it's pretty simple shooting-performance.com also a link down to The podcast where you can listen to I'm pretty sure I just I was checking the podcast out right before I got back on just to make sure I had you know all the details in mind And I'm pretty sure you're about about 399 episodes. So tons of stuff our Audience is so just absolutely demoralized by podcast content because we put out so many shows every week

But hey, sometimes you need a break right sometimes we don't hit the self-defense stuff hard but yeah i do appreciate it mike it's been a blast and and good luck with everything man and don't be a stranger you release a new book or you want to celebrate winning the national championship yeah we'd love to have you back on for sure thank thank you man and if i can do anything for you guys as well in your audience stay safe out there keep training stay prepared Keep doing what you're doing. We'll do thanks. Talk to you soon, but Thanks for watching!