Gun Fu

I really like this quote from the movie “The Forbidden Kingdom”

Jackie Chan as Lu Yan:

“Kung Fu is hard work over time to accomplish skill. A painter can have Kung Fu, or the butcher who cuts meat with such skill, his knife never touches bone.  A musician can have Kung Fu, or the poet who paints pictures with words and makes emperors weep, this too is Kung Fu.”

A similar description for Kung Fu was given in the Netflix series "Marco Polo".

It makes sense as the writer for both of those is John Fusco

Small world, Dillon used to train with John at Vermont Kung Fu Academy

The point being hard work over time to accomplish skill is a path to "the way".  

"The Way" can be used for anything

Another way of looking at this was mentioned in a recent episode of Doctor Who titled "The Woman that lived"

In the previous episode Ashildr was made functionally immortal.  In this episode the Doctor catches up with her 800 years later.

 - The Doctor: You're immortal, not indestructible. You can be hurt - killed, even.


 - Ashildr: 10,000 hours is all it takes to master any skill. Over 100,000 hours and you're the best there's ever been. I don't need to be indestructible - I'm superb.

Cool episode, made even cooler by the fact that Ashildr is played by Maisie Williams who also plays Arya Stark on Game of Thrones (she is my fav)

Fanboy mode off, let's get back on track.

Why I bring this up now, is that after last week playing with Maija Soderholm using different weapons and styles I feel "the way" reveals itself through motion.  

Regardless of what you are using the motion for there are only so many ways a human body can move.  Some motions are more efficient than others.  

When you remove all the motions that require strength or speed,or are representative of only one very specific physical endeavor, the remaining motions are going to look awfully similar.

None of us are indestructible, or even immortal, however, we can all be superb.

We can't devote 100,000's of hours to training in different skills.  So we must make the most of the 10,000's of hours we can train and learn how to make that work for other skills.

The trick is not to let things get compartmentalized.  Rather use your way the way as you know it for new purposes.

Adult learning theory calls this building bridges to previous learning.
Building a new skill out of parts of things you already know how to do.

Recently I helped Cabot put on a class - Firearms for Martial Artists.

After a solid level of familiarity with the weapons was attained you could see the fundamental motions sneak through as the students had to move to cover and transition to different shooting positions.

The information was no longer compartmentalized as gun stuff over here, martial arts stuff over there.  Gun stuff is martial arts stuff.  This is how I move, becomes no different than this is how I move with a gun.

We were out there for about 6 hours.  In those 6 hours we pushed the students further than I have ever pushed a beginner's class before.  This was possible because they were like sponges, they wanted to be there, and didn't have bad habits to break.

This was also possible because Cabot excels at building bridges to the students' previous knowledge.
It is customised individual training.  Not a one size fits all cookie cutter approach.

Because they were sponges, and martial arts "nerds" they asked for home work.

 - Ashildr: 10,000 hours is all it takes to master any skill. Over 100,000 hours and you're the best there's ever been. I don't need to be indestructible - I'm superb.

These are the type of folks, that if you give them a drill they will find time to work that drill to mastery.

So I told them I would post some drills on the blog.
With out further adieu - Gun Fu.

"I know gun fu"

C'mon you know you just read that in Neo's voice

Dry fire drills

I started typing out all the dry fire drills that I do.  It was a pain in the ass, and if you haven't already done the drills the descriptions really didn't make much sense.

So I figured I'd talk one of my partners into filming a couple of the drills.

Randy King makes a video rant like every 4 months so how hard can it be?

Bullet Balance

Move Draw Shoot

So there you go, two very basic drills you can work every day to be a better gun fighter.
All it costs you a a little time and effort.

Hard work over time to accomplish skill.
You won't be indestructible, or even immortal, however, we can all become superb.

I hope you liked the videos, if you would like to see some more gun fu, let me know in the comment section.

Making the videos was actually much harder than Randy makes them look.

Train hard, train smart, be safe