To remain sharp over the decades I attend about two or three classes a year from a vetted Grandmaster or tactics instructor. It’s great being a student for a change as I enjoy learning, especially the nuances from the masters who have been there, done that, have the t-shirts and the shorts.
You can usually find a very skilled operator who is a true master at his craft, but not the best at passing it forward. Conversely you also find a great teacher who maybe hasn’t checked as many boxes. It’s a rare find when you have the training opportunity with a master who is both.
Recently, I had the opportunity to train with world champion Max Michel, who checks all the boxes. His teaching style is as unique as his approach to performance shooting. To provide an example, he came out of his holster and placed a first round on target at no more than .86 seconds for the entirety of the class. Hundreds of repetitions. What was more remarkable to me than his consistency was the manner in which he executed his drawstroke.
The mark of any master is of course how effortless they make it look. His draws actually looked like he was going slow when in truth, and per the shot timer, he never varied even .01 second off the .86 tick.
Being the eternal student, I observed that his movements were as consistent as his par time. Well, they’d need to be right! At that level if you don’t repeatedly execute the same movement you cannot expect the same results. Therein hides the magic behind the madness.
Max has a three-waypoint contact draw. The web of his strong hand thumb hits high up on the backstrap of his holstered pistol (waypoint one) at the exact same time his social finger locks up against the front strap under the trigger guard (waypoint two). All as one movement and precisely the identical coordinates. It takes him less than .4 second to accomplish this each time.
In roughly .2 second after that his support hand index finger lands at that precise spot pressing up and in against the trigger guard and his strong hand middle finger (waypoint three), instantiating the ubiquitous two-handed grip. In about .3 second after that, his two-hand weld moves with extraordinary alacrity toward the target as he calmly, without any observable tension, presses off a perfectly centered hole-punch on the target. For those in the know, yes, this includes follow-through. If you add it all up it took him .86 second to deliver the first round and in most cases about a .15 split on any following rounds.
What caught my attention were the three things he was doing with such consistency that I bet you could take three videos and find virtually no difference in timing, position or waypoints. So rather than bet, I did just that, videoed him three times in a row and yeah, I would have won the bet.
Before diving into the three learning points, the overarching magic of his presentation is both efficiency—zero wasted motion or movement—and his exceptional control of the gun in recoil recovery. Any performance shooter knows that speed is a byproduct of efficiency and accuracy a byproduct of control; Max is no exception to the rule.
First and foremost, he hits his waypoints every time without exception. In the case of his drawstroke as articulated above, waypoints one and two are absolutely flawless. You can see by how consistent his movement that he’s got maybe a million or two reps in acquiring that initial strong-hand positive grip in the holster. Waypoint three happens in a flash. If you aren’t looking for it, you’d miss it even with a trained eye. Learning point one—hit your waypoints every time without exception.
Learning point two is that after he builds his shooting frame (body posture and grip), it never changes from the time he starts his drawstroke all the way through and after he completes the entire string of fire. The first and only time it changes is after he carefully returns the gun to its holster. With his head upright, knees bent, zero facial expression, he runs with a durable grip—one that doesn’t change even one ounce of pressure, regardless of the shooting string.
The third and final learning point is that when he hits the target with his eyes first, he captures the precise center of the target and locks it in as his point-of-aim (POA). He then delivers the muzzle to that precise spot with no over travel or under travel with such control that it looks as if it’s sitting still for the .15 second that it takes him to visually verify and confirm shot placement as he deliberately presses off that round.
Each of his movements is the same. He captures the center of his POA with his eyes every time the same way. He uses his lower body to complete transitions the same way every time. He starts and stops the gun the same way every time. He completes his visual confirmations and trigger presses the same way every time based on the technicality of the shot.
Target acquisition, muzzle movement, trigger press, et al—each of these individual components is modular and identical. Think of these as building blocks. Where he places those blocks is also calculated, precise and deliberate.
Each block and its corresponding waypoint is forged in the fire of countless repetitions in both dry and live fire. It is the hard work of every master and a labor of love for those shooters seeking the same result.
It was Michelangelo who said: “If people knew how hard I worked to achieve my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”
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