By Claus Hansen, Member until 2017
The day, or the weekend if you like, when the last 9 months of training were to be put to the test had at long last, or a little too soon, arrived. Now it had to be seen whether we could actually translate our teaching and training into something practical and whether this would result in an A licence.
What is an A-license, you are probably asking. You can almost compare it to a driving license for shooting. Without an A license, you may not shoot in motion or draw a pistol. It is the highest license that can be obtained within the shooting sport here at home. It is used within the IPSC (International Practical Shooting Confederation), which can be described as shooting's formula 1. With an A license you can participate in IPSC competitions all over the world. IPSC is practical shooting and has its origins in the military.
The preparations for this weekend, for my part, therefore had their origin approx. 9 months earlier, when I, along with a few other instructors, started the POMW project. More than 1 year of preparation had gone by on Sensei's part. We had been given a program which, if we followed it, would bring us to the A license exam. The program consisted of dry and wet training. Dry training consisted of daily training with a toy gun. At first it was simple POMW basic shooting technique and safety from POMW 1. This was gradually expanded with other exercises. Wet training consisted of range shooting at 15 and 25 m. Initially with caliber .22 and later with 9 mm. There was also an introduction to other calibers, such as magnum .357, cal .40, cal .45, magnum .44 and magnum Slugs. However, this was only intended as an introduction to these. Later, movement training was also added and SIRT (Shot Indicating Resetting Trigger) training, pulling exercises, transition training, strong and weak hand and more.
I have to admit that at first I was a bit skeptical about whether I would succeed in getting an A license. Because when I had first shot on the range I could not hit the target at 15 m distance with cal .22 and in IPSC you can find out that the target is at 50 m and you only shoot with 9 mm or more.
So it was with a bit of resistance that I had entered into this. However, I followed the program and after a few weeks, I could see the results in range shooting. I hit the target and got better and better with each passing week. This gave me goosebumps and I threw away all reservations. After all, shooting is very rewarding, as you can see the result immediately.
This weekend we were supposed to be taught IPSC shooting all Saturday and until noon on Sunday, the test itself was to be held on Sunday. So we met at a shooting range in North Zealand on an early cold and wet Saturday morning in October, in total we were 9 shooters. We had 5 instructors who had all been shooting IPSC for up to 30 years and were either or were training to be ROs (Range officers).
The day started with a short introduction of instructors and participants over a bite of bread and a cup of coffee. Disregarding the participants in POMW, the other participants had between 5-30 years of shooting experience. Among them was a hunter with more than 15 years of experience, a professional bodyguard and an active policeman.
After the short introduction and a short speech from the day's head instructor, we headed down to the shooting range. Here pistols and weapons or transport permits had to be presented. After the formalities were in place, a target was set up for each participant as for normal range shooting. Here, each individual shooter was placed in front and we were told to empty the magazine into the disc. The distance wasn't very big so I watched the practice with the aim of seeing how well we shot and to calm our nerves a bit. I emptied the magazine of 15 bullets and took time to aim between each shot, as I kept hearing the phrase hurry up everything but your shooting in the back of my head. To my satisfaction, very few of my shots sat outside the alpha zone. Apparently the instructors didn't think we had shot fast enough so we were ordered to do the drill one more time just faster. This, of course, resulted in me not being able to hear the voice because of all the shots and there was subsequently also some greater dispersion. However, only a few of the shots were outside the Charlie zone, I showed very well why.
We were then divided into 2 smaller groups, each with a couple of instructors. In the group I joined there were 5 of us, in addition to me there was one more POMW participant. Now we had to start IPSC training and teaching. Our instructors built, with our help, more and more complex courses and gradually the level of difficulty was raised. The aim was to expose ourselves to as much of what one could come across at an IPSC meeting as possible. As one of our instructors had 30 years of IPSC experience, he had gradually tried a bit of everything. We started by learning how to move and shoot at the same time. At first it was simple, where you had several targets at different distances and with a standard start. Standard start is with the gun loaded but holstered, cock down. We were able to start by clearing the field with a magazine. Very quickly, however, the track, or the stock as it is called in IPSC, became so long that you had to put in a magazine change. First challenge where you have to use your head, when do you change the magazine, when is it smart and practical. It is not smart to shoot the magazine empty, because then you have to take the load and it costs time. To account for this, we started walking through the courses once they were built. We were given 5 minutes to do a "walk through" and plan how we wanted to shoot the stake. After a few stages, there were barricades on the stage. Here you had to shoot around and through barricades and force them over or under. Barricades can be house corners, walls, windows, doors and much more. With longer stages and increasingly difficult barricades, you were now challenged to think and "read" the stage. If you read it correctly and optimized your run, you could save many seconds. And since in IPSC i.a. is about speed and precision, it is important to plan correctly and hit all targets, as a "miss" or "failure to engage" costs many points.
I had a couple of times where I ran through a stage and forgot to fire on a target. Even if I had been the fastest I probably would have lost the pole.
When we had now practiced changing the magazine and the simplicity of the IPSC, our instructors gave it just one more tooth. This would prove to be a trend for the rest of the day. So far they had been "good" towards us and there had only been a couple of individual DQs and pointed fingers, for something that bordered on unsafe weapon operation. Now they "screwed up". Pointing angles were narrowed and if you had your finger in the trigger while changing magazines or not aiming at a target you were DQ'd. Everyone was DQed at one point or another. But as one of the instructors said, better today than tomorrow. He might have changed his pants afterwards and we would have been DQ'd if one of us swung around and pointed at him, but other than that nothing would happen. It was therefore permissible to complain a little. Tomorrow it would cost the license.
Different starting positions were also introduced on some stages. Instead of a loaded gun in your belt, it should be in front of you, with magazines next to it. The magazines you needed should be next to it, if you needed more than one, to complete the stage it had to be taken from there. After this, the gun was placed on a table and the magazines placed in a drawer while you were placed in a chair. From here you had to open the drawer, take out the magazines and load the gun before you could start shooting at the targets on the stand. There was therefore plenty of opportunity to "fumble" with the gun and with narrowed pointing angles you had to hold your tongue and especially the gun straight.
After hanging around for a few hours and being a good part of the program throughout, it was time for lunch. During lunch, my squad was told that afterwards we had to go down behind the hole. Behind the hole was rather a mud hole, as it had rained a lot the last few days and it was very muddy. Fortunately, it wasn't that muddy inside the hole itself. The mud hole was much smaller than the hole we had shot in the morning. Even so, the stages we were sent through were reasonably challenging and varied. It is impressive what you can do with stages of 30-40 m2. You didn't have to move so much, instead you had to move properly. After a few hours in the little hole, the day was over. We had reached all of Saturday's program and a good part of Sunday's program. And even got praise from the instructors for being so quick to learn. Now it had to be cleaned up, which also took some time. Tomorrow it was supposed to start with another day of training and the final license test.
So it was home, unpack and hang clothes to dry and clean the gun and magazines for the next day. One of today's challenges had been to avoid sand and dirt in the gun from magazines. When you drop an empty or next-to-empty magazine into sand and gravel, muck gets in, and wet sand tends to stick. It had therefore been important throughout the day to ensure that the worst came out. Otherwise the magazine would not push the cartridges up and then you could not shoot. We had also been warned that there would be a theory test during the day. Therefore, theory also had to be read out. I had also had a few "bad habits" during the day and there were therefore also a few things I had to reprogram. It was therefore somewhat late before I went to bed that night and tomorrow it all started again.
Sunday started a bit like Saturday with morning bread and coffee. After finishing breakfast, we went to the shooting range. Our instructor took us through a few more individual internships and since we had thus gone through their internship program and we still had time, they asked us if there were things we would like to practice. Everyone agreed that one of the things that had just caused problems the day before was shooting around barricades and this was a good thing to practice. We therefore made several stages where we shot around barricades. By dinner time we had thus got through the entire program and then some. And the instructors expressed that we had been a good team. During today's lunch, we were told that after lunch, they would go down to the shooting range and build some stands that we had to go through for the test. We had to wait in the clubhouse as we would be picked up when the stages were finished. There would be 4 stages, 2 short and 2 intermediate stages.
We had to keep our squads and shoot stages staggered.
While we waited for instructors to pick us up, I took the opportunity to check equipment, clean magazines, etc. And then I mentally prepared for the test. I had decided to drive safely. Nothing to do about it, the most important thing was to pass the test and not be DQed.
After waiting for what felt like a long time, one of the instructors showed up and picked us up. In the meantime the weather had turned. What had been fine sunny weather on Saturday and a good part of Sunday had turned into gray weather with showers. It was lucky that it was only for the test and not in the morning. It had been sad to stand soaked and cold for the test.
My squad started on stage 1, which was a short stage. First we were briefed about the stage, how many goal types, points, safety angles and distances. Then we were given 5 minutes to go through the stage. When the hour was called, the first shooter had to get ready. I have to admit I was a little nervous when it was my turn, not because shooting is dangerous but because I didn't want to be DQed. You could easily forget a safety thing when you first started. However, I forgot all about giving myself plenty of time and blasted through the stage in the 4th fastest time. It didn't help much though as I had 2 mike's and 2 delta's. This placed me 7th for the stage. Had the 2 mike's been deltas, I would have been No. 4.
After that we shot stage 2. This was a little longer than stage 1. Here I gave myself a better time and completed it in 47 seconds, which was the worst time. I hit all the targets and only had 6 charlies, out of 24 shots, putting me 4th for the bracket.
On stage 3, which was the longest stage, I had to shoot first. Unfortunately, I didn't think the stage through well enough and therefore also got the worst time. However, I had hit the majority of the targets with a good number in the alpha zone. Despite my poor time, it placed me in 4th place for the stage.
After Stage 3 came Stage 4. This was a short stage that had to be shot with weak hand only. I completed this in the 3rd best time and with only 3 charlies and got a position as no. 3 for the stage.
However, the most important thing had been that I had completed the 4 internships without being DQed, the question was, however, whether I got the A license. While we cleaned up, the instructors went up to vote and when we finished cleaning up we were called in one by one and got the verdict.
The instructors didn't have much to say to me. I had not noticed myself during the 2 days. Which in IPSC is considered positive, because if you get noticed in IPSC, it is because you are doing something "crap". And if you do it in IPSC, you can be a danger to yourself and others. I was therefore handed my diploma and temporary A license certificate. The 5-7 months of serious preparation had thus borne fruit and enabled me to take an A-licence, shooting's formula-1.
It must be said to be the proof that the POMW shooting technical manual works.
Incidentally, I was overall no. 5 (score 84.95%) in our little match beaten by 2 other POMW participants (score 100% and 99.53%), a hunter with over 15 years of shooting experience (score 90.07%) and an active policeman (score 88.73%), not bad if I do say so myself.
