I just completed Rob Leatham’s “Day of Steel” for the second time in as many years.

These classes are offered a couple times each year. This is a one day event starting in the morning with instruction from Rob and culminating in the afternoon shooting the “Tuesday Night Steel” event at Rio Salado here in Mesa Arizona.

Rob starts the class with his philosophy of shooting which is very straight forward and stripped down.

Put your sights on the target and pull the trigger without disturbing them.

Doesn’t get much easier than that. Now the challenge is to put your sights on the target and pull the trigger without disturbing them. Not so easy to do.

To attend the class you are required to already have competition experience. This is not a beginning shooting class, or even a beginning competition class. Rob doesn’t teach sight picture or grip fundamentals, or stance. If he sees a problem with any of these he will address them, and help you fix them, but that is not the purpose of the class.

I’m struggling with how to describe what the class is because while it’s easy to use cliches like, “he builds upon the fundamentals”, or “he refines” or “he diagnosis” or “he elevates”. Or even that “he trashes”, or “smashes”, or “throws out the fundamentals”, while all of those adjectives may be true to some extent, they fail to address what’s happening in the class. Here’s my attempt; Rob doesn’t seem to have a bone to pick with competent basic training or fundamentals, rather he seems to say, “that training got you here, now I’m going to take you somewhere else”.

You’ve got the wheels on the chassis, the motor is in and the steering works, now lets learn to drive this puppy. Here’s how I drive.

Lesson 1: Jerking the trigger is essential to high-speed shooting. We’ve all learned that trigger jerk is bad. Not according to Rob. Jerking the trigger will not cause you to miss as long as you don’t disturb the sights while jerking the trigger.

Lesson 2: Do everything fast except shoot. I don’t know if Rob used those exact words, he may have, but that is a big piece of high-speed shooting. The draw needs to be efficient getting the gun and the sights on target in the least time as possible, then you shoot as soon as you accurately can.

Lesson 3: Recoil is essential to accurate high-speed shooting. We’ve become conditioned to fight and try to eliminate recoil usually by muscling the gun. There is no physical way to eliminate recoil unless you counter-act the recoil before it occurs. Many people miss and can’t understand why. They will claim that the sights were right there when the shot went off. But the reality is that in an imperceptible instant before, or as the shot broke they anticipated recoil, disturbing the sights. You want to see the gun recoil from the point of proper sight alignment.

Lesson 4: Drive the gun hard and fast to the next target, then stop and shoot. When faced with multiple target acquisitions most shooters do one or all of several things. They stay on the target that they just finished shooting to verify the shot, they shoot to a cadence or pace, or they try to shoot as they pass over the target. The results are they waste time staying on a shot that is finished. The gun fires regardless of the sight picture. The timing has to be perfect. This lesson goes back to the idea of do everything fast except shoot. Drive the gun to the next target fast, stop hard, then shoot as soon as you accurately can.

After shooting drills for about 4 hours and 400-500 rounds, it’s time to pickup brass and get some lunch. This gives you time to ask Rob questions and to recuperate before going back to the range to shoot the afternoon Tuesday Night Steel with Rob as a group, where you will hopefully apply what you learned in class.

Rob keeps the class size small so that he is able to give individual attention to everyone. Don’t be surprised if you happen to be the guinea pig in one of his demos. As an instructor myself, I watched for some of the things that Rob did as an instructor. You quickly appreciate how much a student of shooting Rob has become. Rob’s ability to identify and diagnose what is happening with a students technique (or lack of) and to prescribe the right level of correction or refinement for that individual is impressive.

If you have the opportunity to take one of Rob’s classes make sure you attend. You’re learning from the best.

For more information on Rob’s class schedule and training be sure to visit www.robleatham.com.

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