Philosophy
Let us open this page with a brief discussion of our training philosophy, particularly as it applies to the defensive use of the handgun at close quarters. After that I may add on some miscellaneous trivia that might be of interest.
The most effective way to ensure our survival in a dangerous world, when all else fails, is to have in place a solid set of pistol skills. The distilled essence of those skills is the ability to dominate your immediate surroundings through the threat or application of deadly force, coupled with knowing when that is morally and legally justified.
The handgun is the only personal firearm that you can have with you, whenever you choose to, day in and day out. For most people it is superior to an edged weapon and it does more to level the playing field, and eliminate a force disparity between you and a threat, than anything else that’s available.
Knowledge is attainable through study and consideration. Developing skill at arms is problematic. Teaching traditional marksmanship has changed little in more than a hundred years, and if shooting tight groups on the range is the objective, then there’s no need to deviate from traditional methods. Perfect sight alignment, hard focus on the front sight, breath and hold control, and slow increasing rearward pressure on the trigger to ensure a “surprise break” are still the means of achieving tight groups.
Unfortunately traditionally trained marksmen don’t seem to do much better in gun fights than untrained criminals. Based upon FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics police nationwide achieve hits in gunfights with less than 20% of the shots they fire, which begs the question “Where are the rest of those rounds going?” Obviously the traditional training approach can be improved on if the goal is to prevail in deadly force encounters, not to shoot tight groups on targets that don’t shoot back.
Our training program takes into account those physiological effects of stress that render traditional marksmanship ineffective in a typical gunfight. We teach traditional marksmanship for when it’s appropriate, i.e. for precise shots at distance. More importantly we teach “reactive shooting” techniques as pioneered by training guru Bill Rogers and others. We teach the use of the entire focal continuum, a rapid presentation of the weapon to the target, a grip that optimizes recoil management and returns the weapon to the target with the sights aligned after each shot, and a natural action stance that manages recoil and allows for rapid engagement of multiple threats.
Nothing we teach is “secret”, nor is it anything we invented. It just represents the forward edge of a widespread evolution in combative marksmanship training. What you get from ZFT now will be the norm in just a few years. We just won’t waste your time training you in methods that we know don’t work in gun fights. There are better methods, and those are what we focus on.
A large portion of our training is conducted on reactive steel targets of our own design. These targets jump and “clang” when struck with a round, providing the shooter with Positive Instant Reinforcement (PIR), visually and audibly. PIR enables the shooter to instantly recognize, at a subconscious level, the results of each shot. A miss is instantly associated with the poor trigger operation and/or inadequate sight picture that caused the miss. A well executed shot is instantly rewarded with the “clang” of a solid hit.
In addition to using PIR, we teach one handed shooting skills more than most trainers do. There are two good reasons for this extra emphasis on one handed shooting. First, you might be fighting off an aggressor and only have one hand available to shoot with, or you might be wounded or partially disabled and only have one hand available to fight with. Secondly, a rapidly growing number of cruiser videos of officer involved shootings are revealing that many shooters are using one handed techniques, even when they have been trained in two handed shooting and both hands are available. We want you to be able to fight with either hand, or both.
With our training we try to prepare you with a better understanding of the stress dynamics you may encounter, and with skills and techniques that work.