So here is the first installment of the some of the videos I have been asked repeatedly to do. It was harder then expected (buddies apparently don’t want their faces on the internet… wussies! :p) and the weather is not cooperating at all. They are going to be brief (after all you can’t expect everything for free on youtube :D), but will hopefully give an idea on some things that often get talked about but are sometimes hard to understand without seeing them. Video can be better then words but you still need to seek out quality instruction from good teachers.
Understand that everyones view point is based on their reality; their experiences, training, and skill. Mine comes from very high level civilian and military shooting experience. I make no bones about my desire for performance. I want to shoot at the highest level possible (while still maintaining a combat focus).
Next will be the shooting platform and our interface with the gun- stance and grip, then a brief explanation on standing, kneeling, and prone. After that will be dry-firing- ready positions, presentations, loading, reloading, and tactical reloads. Then zeroing, a couple of pure accuracy drills, and Rifle Standards. Then we’ll go into speed work and some good drills for that.
Again, it’s important that if someone wants to improve to not skip steps. There’s a method to the madness and it works.
nickdrak, I know dude. Sorry… I didn’t realize how hard it is to make decent video, and on top of that the weather was horrible. We had gusts of wind over 25mph. I had to edit out one of the better portions, because of the target falling over… and the curse words that followed. I’ll try to speak up for the rest of them.
None of this is exciting, and I realize that. But I believe it is going to become important to understand where I am coming from, and what I am trying to achieve, when we get to the speed/accuracy work.
The next one will be a brief review on positional shooting (kneeling and prone). I’ll try to get that one and the Zeroing one uploaded tomorrow. I’m also going to start shooting Drills tomorrow…
No, it means good effort on actually going to the trouble of making the videos. One suggestion: to be fair to the membership, It would probably be a good idea to post a link to (or simply post) your training resume and related military experience. People are going to want to know who this guy is who is so authoritatively putting out instructional videos…
I applaud your endeavor to pass on your knowledge, and I am aware that this is at the expense of your own personal time and effort.
Some constructive criticism-
Use the medium to it’s advantage. That is to say that when using video, use it to show what you are doing. You spent a lot of time on video talking over points that would have been better suited to the written word while having a very indistinct view of the technical points of the manipulations and positions. Good tight shots of the points covered would get your point accross a little better.
It appears that you are doing this solo, and I am sure that it is much more difficult in that manner than with a bunch of AV geeks running around getting the action from every angle. I would advise getting a few shots of the major points and inserting your talking points over the actions instead of trying to talk while demonstrating. It will also allow you to say exactly what you mean instead of bouncing back and forth on the topic. A picture is worth 1,000 words, and video exponentially more so, but a picture/video of someone talking while tugging at their trouser leg is not.
Eliminate unnecessary background clutter. You mentioned that wind kept knocking the target over, but I only saw necessary reference to the target once in the 6 videos. An uncluttered background with clear definition of your actions would be far more helpful.
Please do not take this as anything other than information as to how to better deliver material.
Thank you for the suggestions. The way you suggest would have been much better and I may, if given the time, redo them.
Believe it or not, it took about 2-2.5 hours of work for the first ten minute video. Also, there have been many discussions on a lot of this, and it usually results in gruntled disagreement, mainly I believe, because it’s hard to visualize what is trying to be said. I am unsure of how to work it all in, in 8-10 minute video clips, especially since this was something to be done quickly on the range: its turned out to be more like three days of work… :o
I’ll try to speak up for the rest of them.