There is a difference between self-defense training for carrying a firearm and learning to shoot in a competition like IDPA.
Tactical Firearms Training
If you’re a “tactical” shooter and you train in a tactical way, then the drills you go through on the range need some realistic tactical context incorporated into them.
If you’re a “competition shooter,” then you don’t. Unfortunately, instructors regularly teach competition shooting techniques as tactically sound, which they are not.
I sometimes wonder if the reason for that is because too many firearms instructors are competition shooters. Maybe not enough firearms instructors are instructing from an experienced-based background, i.e., they don’t know how to add that tactical context because they’ve never experienced it in real life. They are not always teaching others to do the right thing in real life, which should worry everyone.
Adding tactical context to your firearms training changes everything about that training. You quickly realize there are things you cannot do and some that don’t work.
Moving backward or up range with a firearm pointing downrange is not an operationally sound drill in a million years. It is a safety drill designed for the range ONLY. It provides no operational training value because you would never do it in real life.
You can be super-fast on the draw and run up and down a range all damn day. Still, unless you’re adding the appropriate tactical context that compliments the specific purpose or situation that you’re training for (armed robbery, carjacking, close-range engagements, close protection contact drills), then your training will never be realistic for the purpose you’re training for in the first place.
Mag dump pouches and Oakley gloves, hanging from a belt kit, flapping around like two squirrels fighting in a hessian sack, does not a gunfighter make.