POMW!'s (Project Old Modern Warrior) third course kicked off on September 1st with the first of 3 parts. The first of the three course parts was a shorter recap, of about 4-5 hours, of POMW! II. In these lessons we practiced what we learned before from POMW! II, which involved distance shooting at different distances and the use of reset when shooting. The main focus that day was learning to create a rhythm during one's shooting with reset. As always, both the dry training and SDK-Skyt's shooting technical handbook are essential for a good result. This cannot be emphasized enough as the difference of POMW! and regular Yakami training is that during POMW! gets a direct result on how intense your training has been and whether you are focused.

Even after some kind of adaptation has taken place, the first shot with a 9mm can. still be overwhelming. It was in my case. During POMW! III was the first 9 mm. shot still overwhelming and not a pleasant thing. However, I have later learned why I am not comfortable with the first shot. It's about the double action, which I'm not comfortable with. For me, I don't feel I have control over the shot on double-action. I don't feel like I can use press-squeeze. Therefore, my first shot becomes uncontrolled and nervous. But with the help of SDK-Skyt's shooting technique manual, I got better control of the double-action shots the further through the course we went.

During the second training, we met early in the morning and went through about 10 hours of shooting practice. During this training we started training transitions (shots at several targets). This involved both shots at different heights and shots sideways. At this moment, one's hips come into play. If, for example, you have to shoot from left to right, then the whole hip and thus the whole body must be turned and not just the arms. In this way, the jerk does not affect the arms and it is much easier to find the aim again. Both the previous shooting and the transitions we shot at different distances at different tempos. The further back, the more difficult it became, both to keep focus and hit the target. Again, I can only point out how important the shooting manual and the dry training are.

All this and the training the week before had taken place in the "Hole", where we had shot at IPSC discs, where the target had been within the Alpha zone. So it had been a "relatively" "large" target to hit. So when we moved into the Shooting House and started shooting precision targets with 9 mm, the real skills started to be used.

Here we are talking about having stood and shot for 3 hours intensively from early morning, so already there the setting was not at the maximum. Then again, you are instructed to get the shooting technical handbook out of your memory, turn up your setting and be 100 percent on. To be honest, I can't remember my results, but can almost guarantee there was a big spread on my disc. This is a clear sign of an unfocused shooter… But with already two POMW! courses in the luggage, so you know it is not something that will bring you down, but simply that there is something to work with! However, it is difficult to have that setting all the time after 5-6 hours of shooting. The precision shooting at a distance of 25 meters with 9 mm. was the end of 9-10 hours of shooting and if people are in doubt, I can guarantee that after so many hours, you are very tired in head and body.

On 9/22 came the last of 3 shooting days. The first shot rang out at 9:00 and set off what consisted of 3 hours of transition shooting and distance shooting with reset. As an extra thing, we got to try doing barricade shooting. Which, in its simplest sense, involves being able to shift the weight and being able to shoot off-center. At the end of the shooting in the "Hole", we shot at 45 meters with transition shooting, where we were tasked with emptying 2 magazines in a fixed rhythm.
Saw the first 3 hours of POMW! III's 3rd day was a refinement and final practice of the last 2 times of practice in the hole. After the first 3 hours came the big test with 0.22 mm. on precision discs. But first a small lunch break, followed by a PowerPoint show with information about all of POMW!'s genesis, effect, foundation, etc. to give us a better understanding of how big a project POMW! in reality is. Before we started the .22 the 9mm had to be cleaned which we all had to learn and there is no better way to learn than to do it yourself. So 4 guns were laid out and with instructions from Martin Renshi and Jens Hanshi-dai, everyone got POMW! participants with joint help cleaned the 4 guns.

Finally had to shoot with .22s, which is a very strange feeling after shooting with a 9mm, which has quite a bit more firepower than a .22. There can be talk about recoil control, reset and split-time to master than 9 mm., but in my understanding the real gun control comes from being able to shoot with a .22. This is due to an explanation Søren Renshi gave after we had shot. The 0.22's projectile moves in a sphere, so if you don't have perfect hand technique and correct setting it will be visible on the disc, where there will be a large spread. In my case, I shot my first of 3 rounds with a small collection, which made me think, "great, it's going well!" and it just went downhill from there.
From there my setting drifted away and in the next 2 rounds there was a huge spread on my disc. A testament to both poor hand technique and attitude.

So I can only recommend a large amount of dry training and optimum setting at the moment, which is much harder than it sounds. In addition, it is extremely important to remember not to drag yourself down with a bad result, but simply to remember that there is something to work with.

Within the POMW! do not work with bad shots. All shots are fired to be optimal, and simply show that either something is being done right or something is being done wrong. But it is a direct result of how diligent you have been and where your attitude is at the given moment.