Bringing a new shooter into the fold: priorities of training?

[xsquidgator]

Thanks again everyone for all of your thoughts, opinions, and input - I do appreciate it.

I've realized that some of my motivation is wanting to have some competent folks around, although deep inside, my main motivation is wanting to share things I've learned along the way where it might do someone some good.
Even though everyone who's approached me has more or less the same motivation, that is, wanting to be safe and to take some control over their own safety, the degree of commitment isn't the same across everyone.

I think the thing to do is to try to do the best with what we have on hand, and if some folks are a little less on board with training a lot or harder, I should be grateful that I've found people who are willing to go down the path at all. 

Friday and Saturday are range days with three families/couples, and I'm inclined to use some of the advice given here to wear out the plate rack and make it fun while still being some training.

[xsquidgator]

I thought of a general thought I'd like to weave into the "curriculum", perhaps it's also one of the goals in bringing along new gun people.  That would be to "fight the derp", to convey enough knowledge, information, and experience to the new shooter so that they are better able to recognize and avoid derp.

We all know derp even if we don't all use that word for it.  Derp is bad equipment, bad tactics and techniques , and just plain gun foolishness.  People who have derp and who do it are generally untrained and may mean well, but don't have enough quality knowledge and experience to recognize why what they're doing is a bad idea.  Examples of derp are oddball holsters and holster substitutes that some  new gunowner "inventor" comes up with because no one makes something that does X.  Derp is someone saying "I'll just say I was in fear for my life", sometimes it's "this thing costs way less and is just as good as ... "  sometimes that's true but it often is not, and a new person's first impression isn't the most reliable indicator of which.

Fight the derp!

[xsquidgator]

We had the first range visit with three different family groups this weekend, keeping this discussion in mind and it went well.

For two of the wives and one of the husbands, this was the first time shooting (ever) after some basic classroom type instruction.  Everyone did fine, some more than others, but fine enough and more importantly no safety problems and good attitudes all round.
One of the couples had a husband who'd been a gunowner for a fair while but without formal training, and his wife had never shot before nor any prior training.  By the end of the day she was able to clean the plate rack 6 rounds in a row with no misses which was better than the husband was able to do.  No teasing but it did make the point well about just doing the fundamentals and putting it all together, stable shooting position/grip, place the aligned sights on the target, focus on the front sight and smooth trigger squeeze to not disturb the gun.

Everyone got the change to do the plate rack, El Presidente, and we did some other drills to illustrate things like the Tueller Drill.  Good time for everyone and everyone given homework to dryfire several times this week (with appropriate safety cautions).  Everyone enjoyed getting a score and learned about the shot timer and scoring targets, and they thought it was cool to see the Keanue Reeves training with Taran Butler videos and realize they were doing almost the same thing.

I can't always count on getting a bay with a plate rack, but I always have a box of biodegradeable shotgun clays in the garage and they make a decent reactive target when thrown up on the berm and are allowed at this range.  Reactive targets and making a friendly competition out of drills does make for some fun in the mix, and after seeing it recommended here I think some of that will be very helpful here.  Thanks again for all the thoughts, suggestions etc and please keep them coming if you think of anything you think would be helpful!