Anyone who has played golf, baseball, basketball, or nearly any sport knows a great golf swing, baseball pitch, or basketball jump shot takes long hours of study, coaching, conditioning, and practice in order to apply it effectively in competition.  Athletes know movements such as swings and throws are complex motions that require attention to and critique of many details such as stance, grip, breath control, fluidity, focus, and follow-through; that it takes a skilled and experienced coach to demonstrate and enforce the student's practice of proper technique.  Simply walking onto a field and practicing will not make perfect, as improper technique will be practiced and reinforced to the point it is a bad habit; these are known as 'training scars' and they are difficult to unlearn.

The drawing, presentation, and use of a firearm is similarly an athletic pursuit that requires study and instruction of proper stance, grip, breath control, fluidity, focus, follow-through, and other elements in order to put hits on target under stress.  By training with a Certified NRA Instructor, you will be demonstrated and coached through defensive shooting techniques per the curriculum of the world's most trusted authority on firearms education.  Even if you have been shooting all of your life, it is imperative that you have another set of eyes to observe and evaluate your implementation of safety rules, fundamentals of shooting, and application of legal knowledge under stress.

Inside the immerse virtual shooting theater, you will be faced with live-action video scenarios which have multiple operator-selectable story branches, the desired training outcome that the student discovers how they would actually react and perform in a particular what-if scenario vs. how you imagine.  How you think you would perform or would like to perform (Rambo?) vs. reality establishes a training gap, the NRA Instructor uses video playback and after-action review to identify areas for improvement and then coaches to narrow the training gap.

Mike Shannahan is a Certified NRA Instructor for the following NRA courses: Basics of Pistol Shooting, Basics of Rifle Shooting, Personal Protection Inside the Home, and Personal Protection Outside the Home (expected 2017).  During 2009-2016 he accumulated approximately 200 hours of instructed training in tactical firearms a.k.a. gun fighting- as opposed to sport shooting and hunting- through respected trainers LMS Defense and Defensive Accuracy.  He approaches firearms as simply tools, his firearms training an additional layer atop a foundation of thousands of hours of martial arts training in the distinctly battle-oriented, brutal arts of Dux Ryu Ninjitsu (Black Belt), Israeli Kapap Association (Cert. Level 1 Instructor), Urban Combat (Black Belt testing soon) and Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu, as well as sport-oriented arts of Brazilian Jui Jitsu and modern MMA.  In addition to many years of practice teaching martial arts to new and experienced students, Mike has seven years of experience coaching paddlers through class III+ rapids as a white water raft guide on the S. Fork American River, enabling him to convey knowledge more efficiently to students than those who simply exited a long career in military or police service and fell into instruction.  When Mike is not training or instructing, he applies an electrical engineering degree from USC towards developing robotic surveillance devices for military applications, having been granted several patents and patents pending.