By Jesper Enemark, Member until 2023
I had the great pleasure of being at POMW I-III, here in the fall of 2019. It is the 3rd time that POMW has been held, and it is clear that the program, the content and especially the instructors have matured with time. There were both new shooters and numbers of 'by invitation only' shooters who used the course as part of the OBC. All in all we were about 18 – 20 shooters, as well as 4 – 5 instructors and Kimu Sensei. In order to carry out the shootings safely and with the required level, everything therefore had to work, which requires a lot of preparation. The instructor team put, perhaps even more than usual, energy, time and commitment into the implementation of the course. It was long days from 0600 to 18 – 19, purchasing ammunition, booking courses and all the other practical things. Big kudos to the instructors!
My motivation for participating in POMW is partly a fundamental interest in shooting, which goes back many years, and partly my curiosity as to whether it would be possible to train people to become skilled shooters in such a short time. Firearms do something to people. Fortunately, it is not normal in Denmark for people to have extensive experience with firearms. Firearms are truly dangerous and must be treated with respect. On the other hand, you can also learn to use and deal with them safely, with a well-structured program. This is what the POMW course does; trains people to use firearms safely, and with a high level of professionalism. Many nice results were shot during the days at the range, and many were surprised by how good they turned out.
Shooting is fundamentally about process, and it rhymes very well with our other training. The training is boiled down to the essence of shooting, with many elements from karate, including a focus on breathing, timing and 'yep'. These are familiar things from the training, which are now used in a new context. The basic learning behind POMW is that the person behind the weapon is in control. It must be understood as that, with the right technique and attitude, you can control the weapon and achieve good results.
The course was conducted according to the motto 'Living POMW'. In practice, this means that you have long and intense training days, supplemented by dry training of the basic techniques at home. Towards the end, I did dry training for 20 – 30 minutes every day, so many hours have been spent on training. The training went from hard ball pistol with plastic bullets and CO2 cartridge, to '22 pistol and finally 9 mm pistol, which is also the size used by the Police and the Armed Forces. You don't have to go out and buy 3 pistols, only the hard ball pistol is necessary, and the other two also require that you have been a member of the shooting club for at least 2 years. Therefore, the club's own pistols and the instructors' private pistols are used. In total, we were at the shooting range for 4 days and got to shoot many 100 rounds. I can only recommend that you get hold of your club mates who were on the course and hear about their experiences.
In general, I had a development towards a more 'total shot image'. This means that the shots hit close to each other. The overall shot image is important, and not necessarily to hit in the center. Depending on where the shots sit, the reticle can be adjusted. An overall shot image is an expression of following the same process. My personal greatest success was on the last day, when small yellow cardboard discs were shot at 40 meters away. There I got 4 hits in a row, and a total of 9 hits out of 18 shots. I didn't think that would be possible when the course started.
I would like to say thank you for an incredibly exciting course, which has given me a lot, both training-wise and personally. I am already looking forward to the first training session on the Tapeten.
