Fundamentals first. Every time.

I didn't get into firearms instruction looking for a side project. I kept running into the same problem: people learn to shoot from whoever happens to be standing next to them at the range, picking up habits that are inconsistent at best and unsafe at worst. (No offense to Dad or Grandpa!)

My background is in building structured processes, the kind of work where a missed step has real consequences and skipping the checklist isn't an option. I bring that same discipline to the line. Every course I teach runs on a written standard, not on whatever I happen to remember from the last class.

Marksmanship is a tradition that only survives if it's handed down well, which is part of why I put real time into youth instruction, through Revere's Riders and on my own range time. A kid who learns the fundamentals right at twelve carries that for the rest of their life, and that next generation is how this tradition stays alive. I believe in a philosophy of continued education and training. I learn as much from teaching as I do from taking classes myself.

You have many choices when it comes to selecting an instructor to work with. There's also a wide variety of skill and experience with those instructors. Whether you are choosing someone from a commercial range, or seeking out training on your own, ask a few questions about how that instructor keeps learning themselves: when's the last time they took a class instead of taught one, and what are they currently working on improving in their own shooting?

I don't pretend to have it all figured out. Marksmanship doesn't reward standing still, and neither does teaching it. I still take courses, still get coached, and still find something in my own fundamentals worth fixing every season. If your instructor can't point to something they're actively working on, that's worth asking about.

Whoever shows up to my line, first-timer or twenty-year shooter, gets the same patient, by-the-book instruction. Good fundamentals don't care where you're from or what you believe, and neither do I.