Teaching Women to Shoot

Nice story over at InstaPundit from the InstaWife, Dr. Helen, about learning to shoot, centered on the book Women Learning to Shoot: A Guide for Law Enforcement Officers. This is the great book from Vicki Farnam and my good friend Diane Nicholl at DTI, their follow up to Teaching Women to Shoot, this time from the students' perspective:

Anyway, my point here is not to go off on a tangent on the benefits of gun rights vs. gun control, but rather to focus on the great tips in this book written by two women, Diane Nicholl & Vicki Farnam. They focus on tips for female students who are learning to shoot and label their first chapter, "Risk and Opportunity". They talk to the female student about how to manage the mental risk of shooting and use a bit of psychology to talk to a fear of success that women may have when shooting.

I found the first book fascinating and a must read for every firearms instructor. Here's the outline of the new book:

In this profusely-illustrated companion to the ground-breaking Teaching Women To Shoot: A Law Enforcement Instructor's Guide, we switch to the student's point of view - particularly the female student. The techniques we have used to help hundreds of women improve their shooting are here for you to learn.

Our new book is different because it is written for women by women. We have listened, asked questions and observed how women learn to shoot for many years. Our students include women shooting a handgun for the first time to those with many years experience in law enforcement and the military. They share many of the same problems and frustrations, so do not feel like you are the only one struggling to hit the target!

Women differ in how they learn and how readily they develop new skills. We have found women tend to learn more quickly if the material is broken into several parts and is mastered one step at a time.

At the beginning of every class, we ask our students what their shooting problems are. The most frequent complaint is their lack of consistency. Sometimes they go to the range and shoot well and other times they do poorly. They cannot explain why this happens.

They do not fully understand what they need to do to accurately hit their target and they do not know why they miss. Our book provides the information you need to learn to make consistently accurate hits and to be able to self correct if you miss.

There are many things that can help or hinder accurate shooting. You will find shooting requires you to do several things all at the same time. Women are good at multi-tasking, given the proper instruction. We break shooting down into parts, thoroughly explain each one and describe how to put them together.

I gave you the Amazon link, but speaking as an author myself, I suggest you buy the books directly from DTI!!!