Practice makes perfect, an important phrase that we often forget during airsoft. Although it’s something that I like to do, I don’t do it often. Time to change that.
I had the chance to organise a first training day on a Saturday and am looking forward to doing it more. I don’t know yet with what interval but you can find the dates on my website or Airsofter World.
During the day we practiced 3 different things
- How to move and stand
- Gear & how to use it
- Movement with others
Starting with the movement and stances. I had 3 targets and 3 shooting spots. The Targets were numbered from 1 till 3 and the spots were numbered from A to B. First exercise, we shot 10 targets. I called a number and from spot B, the targets needed to be shot and you only had 1 shot per target. Then we switched to moving to a different spot while shooting on the second target. The last one we combined both and called for the target and spot, for example 2C, shooting the second target from the 3rd spot. A very interesting mind exercise and then shoot the target from the correct spot.
Second exercise we went to gear and first we talked about different slings and why we prefer 1, 2 or 3 point slings. Then we went to the reload drill. We practiced the speed reload. You use it when you quickly need to reload. You choose a magazine that you can take the fastest, the one that is not in the way of your sling or that you have to make weird movements while standing. We did this first while standing and then switched to doing the same while moving and shooting.
In this exercise we don’t only practice the movements but also how you take your mag, how your mag needs to be in the pouch and how many actions you need to do to insert the mag and get the old mag in your pouch without dropping it. Adding the element of stress in it to be the fastest, makes it fun.
A very interesting exercise that can easily be done at home to get familiar with your gear and create that muscle memory.
Next we went to duo fire and move exercises. Something that is important during CQB play. You almost never get more than 2-3 people to move with at the same time, so I don’t really focus on it. But instead I practice moving with every person that is around me in a simple way. If I move, he needs to cover me and when he moves, I cover him. Basic but very important.
We practiced this with me being on the receiving end with 2 targets that I showed in the door or window, giving an extra challenge for the team moving up. When I felt that they were not suppressing me, they failed the exercise. But they did a really good job and I would have not shown my face in this situation. Simple communication between the 2 people is again important to not both start running or both start shooting.
We combined the reload drill into this because when you’re moving, you don’t want the shooting person to take a long time to reload when you’re in the open. A really fun exercise that changes the way you move on a field a lot.
As a last exercise I put 6 targets in an area and the duo team needed to move through the area and both shoot all targets. This made them communicate and make sure that if one person shoots, the other one is checking the area. Some interesting things popped up, muzzle awareness and when you can shoot a target suddenly becomes important. We first did it with 2 people and then I joined and suddenly that 3rd person created a whole different way of moving and communicating.
A very fun day and one that I needed more than I expected. I look forward to the next one and I hope you join in on that one and next time we’re side by side on the field, we will click.