Frank Garcia's Universal Shooting Academy - Review
I recently had the pleasure of taking a five day practical pistol
instructor course at Frank Garcia's Universal
Shooting Academy in Florida. You may not know about Frank as he
doesn't seem to get much attention from the shooting press, despite
having been a top shooter since the mid 1980s (e.g. Second Place in
Standard Division at the last two IPSC World Shoots). In the week I
spent with him I found him to be a fairly unassuming individual, with
a very professional manner and an extremely sharp focus on what it
takes to rank among the best in practical shooting.
The Universal Shooting Academy is located outside of the town of
Frostproof, about an hour south of Disney World in Central Florida. He
has 15 ranges, each of about 30m by 30m, backing onto an Air Force
bombing range and surrounded by a designated hunting preserve. His
main training ranges replicate the Bianchi Cup ranges with the other
dozen being IPSC ranges with various permanent props. This is one
facility that won't have to worry about a subdivision being built next
door! I was there in the first week of January and weather conditions
were perfect for spending extended time on the range.
Unlike most other big name instructors, Frank keeps his class sizes
very small, just four students. For the instructor courses, he will
only take one student so you get the benefit, and challenge, of being
under a microscope for five full days. The instructor course is very
similar to his other courses with the addition of covering how to pass
along to others the techniques he teaches. Frank's philosophy is that
besides having a sound understanding of the theory you also need to be
able to execute the skills yourself. This one-on-one instruction lists
at just $300 per day, plus about 1000 rounds of ammunition a day.
Having attended lots of conferences/training events where you are one
of hundreds of participants paying that sort of per diem, this
individual attention from a truly world class competitor and
instructor struck me as an amazing value.
Anyone looking for the secrets of the Grand Masters is going to be
disappointed with Frank's instruction because he is adamant that there
are no secrets to world class performance. What separates the people
at the top of the action shooting sports from the rest of us is
perfect fundamentals. Those fundamentals are:
-
Draw
-
Accuracy
-
Target acquisition
-
Movement
-
Reload
-
Mental game
The vast bulk of the course's five days were spent on the first
five of these fundamentals. As my frame of reference with respect to
IPSC performance is largely limited to competing in Ontario and Quebec
(Canada), one of the enlightening elements was Frank's sharing what
were world class performance levels to strive towards in the various
fundamentals.
Frank sees the shooter who is attempting to master practical
shooting as having five phases of skill development to pass through on
the way to Grand Master performance. These phases are:
-
Knowing the fundamentals of the game (at an intellectual level)
-
Learning the movements of each fundamental
-
Executing fundamentals in practice
-
Executing fundamentals in a match
-
Working on finesse/flow of movements
Frank maintains that there is basically one way to perform each of
the fundamental skills. His goal is to show you the correct way to
execute a particular skill and then have you attempt perfect execution
of the skill. With enough repetition you will execute the skill
perfectly at least a few times, and the memory of those perfect
executions is what you will take away to guide your progress along the
path to world class performance. And it does take massive
repetition to drill into you what perfect fundamentals feel like.
The first thing Frank does on the range is check your equipment
positioning to ensure that your gun is perfectly placed. I bought one
of his amazingly adjustable Pro
Series Holsters to replace my aging Ernie Hill Jet II. I haven't
used the latest generation of holsters from the competition so I
cannot make comparisons to other products, but this holster is
extremely adjustable, fast and secure. After positioning the gun Frank
has you fire a few groups at black dots painted on a target. This
indicates to him what degree of work needs to be done on your
accuracy. He then has you do a few draws. From watching you shoot a
few groups and watching you draw several times, Frank can determine at
what level your fundamentals are (and what class you are).
The rest of the first day was spent working on the draw. I arrived
at the Universal Shooting Academy with 17 ten round magazines, and
this was the first time I felt that I don't have enough magazines.
Frank is a big fan of using stationery plates in his practice drills
because of the instant feedback without have to pause for patching or
resetting targets. After lots of dry firing to work on the movement of
the draw and perfecting the grip, I finally got to start shooting with
draw and fire two rounds at a 10" plate 10 yards away. Frank
watches you like a hawk throughout all of your shooting and provides
plenty of feedback. After 85 repetitions of this first exercise it was
time to reload magazines and return to the firing line for another 170
rounds of the same thing. By the time I was loading all 17 magazines
for the third time, I was starting to realize that this week was going
to be work.
Frank feels that anyone, virtually regardless of physical
attributes or "natural" ability, can develop a world class
draw in one year: providing they know what a perfect draw consists of
and they practice it by dry-firing 5-10 minutes every morning and
evening and go to the range at least three times a week for a 300
round practice. To have a world class draw is to hit that 10"
plate every time in .92-.99 seconds. What separates the Grand
Masters who win major matches from everyone else is that they never
mess up on the fundamentals. As with much of what Frank teaches, he
shows you the path to world class performance; how far you choose to
go down that path is up to you.
One of the great things about IPSC is that you can start one
weekend and decide to shoot in a major match against the World
Champion the following weekend. I enjoy hacking around on a tennis
court and even took lessons. Hell, I even competed in a couple of
tournaments at work. Will I be going to the US Open or Wimbledon? Not
in this lifetime. With IPSC competition the weekend hacker can
shoot with the best in the world. Spending a week with Frank really
brought home that there are true professionals in this game. The
'disclaimer' at the beginning of shooting videos that these
professionals have practiced the techniques shown tens of thousands of
times with an empty gun is not just there for liability reasons - they
really do practice that much! You can have a lot of fun shooting IPSC
matches at whatever your skill level is, with however little practice
you choose to put in; just don't expect to win anything beyond a club
level match. The shooters at the top of this game are there because of
a lot of hard work and discipline.
I'm not going to go through the last four days in the level of
detail above, but I will relay some of Frank's philosophy on accuracy.
Misses are not acceptable. There that was easy. To truly make you
understand that misses are not acceptable Frank has a number of
exercises where you engage difficult, or to use his terms,
"danger" targets. Danger targets are those that are
difficult enough that the shooter cannot take hits for granted. The
key to dealing with danger targets is to recognize them and take all
of the time that is necessary to ensure that you hit them. I also
learned that misses are not what appear on the score sheet but what
fails to appear on the target. Realizing you missed a target and
successfully re-engaging the target is just a lesser sin than missing
a target and not making up the shot. After hundreds of rounds fired in
drills that required me to do things like engage three B zones with
six shots each at 25m before moving on to the next drill, I realized
that my greatest strength (accuracy) was not as strong as I had always
thought. The odd flyer is there because of a loss of focus or mental
discipline; therefore it can be prevented.
Frank finds that the reason those below Grand Master make mistakes
is that they don't always recognize the degree of difficulty of a
target and therefore don't speed up or slow down as appropriate. The
exercises he uses help you recognize the different types of targets
for what they are, learn what your capabilities are and gradually
improve those capabilities.
If you look at Frank's course outline, you will not be
impressed. On paper it looked a hell of a lot like the Black
Badge IPSC Course I have been teaching in Canada for the past 10
years. You cannot really "borrow" his approach as the true
substance of his courses cannot be captured on paper; it takes massive
repetition with continuous feedback from targets and more importantly
from Frank. I went through about 4000 rounds over the five days I was
there and it took that many rounds to make many of the lessons sink
in. While I was picking up brass (and 4000 is a lot of brass!) I
reflected on how I used to think picking up brass was the work part of
shooting. No, the work is forcing the mental discipline upon yourself
to accept nothing less than perfect fundamentals with every shot you
fire.
At the end of the course Frank sits down with you and gives an
assessment of your strengths and weaknesses and lays out a training
plan that will help you minimize those weaknesses. His approach is
very business-like. He's not there to be your buddy, he's there to
pass along as much knowledge as he can in five days. This course from
beginning to end doesn't have much room for ego. If you cannot take
constant objective feedback and analysis, this is going to be a very
long week for you. Frank says that whether it's a new D shooter or a
GM who has never won a major match, his approach is basically the
same: observe the fundamentals and work on perfecting them.
So did taking that five day course pay off? I have to say it's like
entering the stock market - don't jump in expecting immediate payback.
Frank's experience is that anyone who learns the fundamentals and
works on them diligently can be a Grand Master in three years. I
haven't put in the level of practice that I know is required. Between
all of the dry firing and shooting in those five days, I developed
tendonitis in a couple of fingers, a condition that took two months to
clear up. If you are thinking of taking a course at the Universal
Shooting Academy, do exercises to strengthen your grip and shoulders
for a few months beforehand. By day three I kept waking up at night
with my hands cramped into the position of my grip!
Returning to Canada in mid-January (which for you Southerners, is
like putting a fan in your deep freeze and climbing in with it), where
I only have an outdoor range to train on, also isn't conducive to
putting in quality range time. After having about 8" of snow fall
on the day of our March and April club matches, I'm starting to think
of IPSC as a possibility for the Winter Olympics. The dry firing I
have been doing has been paying a modest dividend, but I need to put
in lots of work.
As a Master Instructor for Canada's two day Black
Badge Course, there has been a huge benefit. I'm now teaching
state of the art instead of circa 1990 techniques and I spend much
more time on the fundamentals. I've always had very good reviews as an
instructor, but now I feel I'm giving my students a glimpse of the
path Frank showed me and getting them started down that path. As with
myself, how far they choose to go down that path is an individual
matter, but at least the direction is clear.
Dave Bartlett
Canadian Firearms
Training
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