Hwansik Kim " Vison FUCKUS"

Summary

Podcast Summary: The TTPOA Podcast – Episode Featuring Hwansik Kim "Vision FUCKUS"

Release Date: April 9, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of The TTPOA Podcast, hosts Matt and Brandon welcome special guest Hwansik Kim, a renowned shooting instructor and former professional athlete in shooting sports. Kim brings a wealth of experience from his tenure in the South Korean Army and his transition to full-time teaching with the Practical Training Group since 2018. This episode delves deep into the critical role of vision in shooting performance, innovative training techniques, and the distinctions between competitive and law enforcement shooting standards.

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Guest Introduction: Hwansik Kim

Hwansik Kim begins by sharing his journey from serving as an infantry Humvee driver in the South Korean Army to becoming a prominent shooting instructor in the United States. Sponsored by Walther as part of their shooting team, Kim shifted his focus entirely to teaching in 2018 alongside Ben Steger. His mission is to "help our first responders improve their shooting efficiency and effectiveness through specialized training."

[03:04] Kim: "I truly believe shooting is not just something that I love to do, but I feel like I can help a lot of people."

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The Importance of Vision in Shooting

A significant portion of the discussion centers around vision focus and its paramount importance in shooting accuracy and performance. Kim emphasizes that vision is "the most priority in the class", shaping how shooters process visual information and control their firearm.

[08:21] Kim: "Vision is the most priority in the class. So that when you are out of my class, you understand 100% what vision focus means."

Vision Focus Speed and Drills

Kim introduces two specialized classes:

1. Vision Focus Class
2. Mastery Class

In the Vision Focus Class, participants engage in exercises designed to maximize their visual processing speed and focus precision. One such drill involves changing focal depth rapidly, which Kim developed after studying the physiological aspects of eye muscles responsible for zooming in and out.

[17:10] Kim: "So I started feeling the changing focal depth happens. And faster, faster it happens, the more strain feel I had in my eyes."

These drills train shooters to "change focal depth within the buzzer timing," enhancing their ability to maintain accuracy under various conditions.

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Practical Application: Confirmation Drills

Kim elaborates on his confirmation drills, which are crucial for developing corrective shooting skills. These drills require shooters to confirm their aim before firing, ensuring that every shot is deliberate and precise.

[35:21] Kim: "In my class, within an hour or two, I show them. This is the magic button."

Brandon shares his transformative experience after attending Kim's class, highlighting the immediate improvement in his shooting accuracy and vision focus.

[10:22] Brandon: "So you're definitely right. So the class that we brought to the Region 7, it's vision. Basically, Vision Focus is what the title was."

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Interpreting Pack Timers and Metrics

The discussion extends to the effective use of pack timers in training. Kim explains that while pack timers provide valuable data, they should be interpreted beyond mere speed metrics. Understanding the cycle time of a slide and visual response time helps in assessing a shooter's true performance capabilities.

[25:40] Kim: "The pack timer, yes, it shows you a lot... cycle time of a slide, it's 0.06 visual response time."

This approach ensures that shooters focus on improving their vision efficiency rather than merely chasing lower times, which can often lead to compromised accuracy.

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Differences Between Competitive and Law Enforcement Shooting

Kim contrasts competitive shooting with law enforcement training, emphasizing that the latter requires a balance between speed and accuracy under real-world pressures. While competitions like USPSA have specific classifications and benchmarks, law enforcement must adapt these principles to fit operational realities.

[42:16] Kim: "One of the known things is the quals are not direct representation of how you're going to be actually using your firearm under situation."

Matt adds that law enforcement cannot rely on competition rigs but must train with their duty gear to ensure practicality and reliability in the field.

[29:10] Brandon: "I do have the Walther PDP5... because you just shoot a Glock... It's not going to change what they're doing."

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Teaching Philosophy: Experience Over Knowledge

Kim advocates for a teaching methodology that prioritizes experiential learning over theoretical knowledge. He believes that "experience beats information," asserting that practical performance is essential for true mastery.

[33:21] Brandon: "People want the easy button. They want you to say, kim, give me this one thing that fixes this."

Kim counters by stressing the importance of continuous practice and refinement, highlighting that lasting improvement stems from dedicated effort and application.

[58:07] Kim: "I warn people, to be able to do this on demand, you have to spend about six months to a year dedicated to vision focus."

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Influences and Development of Training Techniques

Kim credits his growth to studying top-tier shooters like Eric Carfell, JJ Racaza, and Ben Steger. By analyzing their strengths—Carfell’s volume, Racaza’s athleticism, and Steger’s shooting fundamentals—Kim developed a balanced training regimen that incorporates these elements into his own methods.

[73:28] Kim: "My blessing was study. And that's what I did immediately."

This analytical approach allows Kim to tailor his training to address various aspects of shooting performance, ensuring comprehensive skill development for his students.

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Consistency and Terminology in Instruction

Throughout the episode, Kim emphasizes the necessity of clear and consistent terminology in training. By defining terms like "confirmation drills" and "gradual trigger pull," he ensures that all instructors and students have a unified understanding of the techniques being taught.

[71:08] Kim: "That's why I'm teaching gradual trigger pull. Because what does it mean, gradual trigger pull? Pull the trigger gradually."

This clarity prevents misconceptions and ensures that training outcomes are aligned with instructional objectives.

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Conclusion

This episode of The TTPOA Podcast with Hwansik Kim offers invaluable insights into the nuanced role of vision in shooting performance. Through detailed discussions on specialized drills, the effective use of metrics, and a philosophy grounded in experiential learning, Kim provides a roadmap for first responders aiming to enhance their shooting proficiency. His emphasis on clarity, consistency, and continuous improvement serves as a guiding principle for both instructors and students in the field of tactical shooting.

[79:25] Kim: "If you want to find me on Instagram, just type my name, Hwansik Kim Shooting. You can also visit my official website at hkimshooting.com."

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Notable Quotes:

• Hwansik Kim [03:04]: "I truly believe shooting is not just something that I love to do, but I feel like I can help a lot of people."
• Hwansik Kim [08:21]: "Vision is the most priority in the class. So that when you are out of my class, you understand 100% what vision focus means."
• Brandon [10:22]: "So the class that we brought to the Region 7, it's vision. Basically, Vision Focus is what the title was."
• Hwansik Kim [21:00]: "The red dot must not be near it, but on the molecule spot, not nearby it."
• Hwansik Kim [35:21]: "In my class, within an hour or two, I show them. This is the magic button."
• Hwansik Kim [58:07]: "I warn people, to be able to do this on demand, you have to spend about six months to a year dedicated to vision focus."

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Connecting with Hwansik Kim:

• Website: hkimshooting.com
• Instagram: @hkimshooting
• YouTube: Search for "Hwansik Kim" or "Kim Recall Management"

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Train Hard. Until next time, stay safe and stay sharp.

Transcript

[Kim]

Foreign.

[Brandon]

For SWAT officers, military, and all first responders. We'll be talking training tactics and leadership with the best subject matter experts around. Here are your hosts, Matt and Brandon. Yeah, sorry, guys, I haven't got that changed yet. Probably won't happen, but if it ever does, we'll have Matt and Brandon, not Derek and Brandon. Derek's no longer with us. Well, he's still alive, but he's just no longer with the podcast team anymore or ttpoa. He's moved on to bigger and better things, so. All right, our next episode, we're gonna be. I can't even remember what episode it is now. Sorry, I got too much stuff going on. So, Matt, I know you don't know either because you just joined us, so you're like, man, whatever it is, it is.

[Matt]

Whatever number it is, it is.

[Brandon]

How you doing, man?

[Matt]

Good, bro. How are you, man?

[Brandon]

Enjoying. I called you up and, hey, want to do a podcast or not and stuff?

[Matt]

Sure. I wouldn't do anything else.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, you don't have anything else to do, so. Well, we're going to welcome our next guest in. We're not at the backyard honky tonk. It's a little too cold, a little too windy, and, man, I haven't had time to get stuff done and I think the couch. The couch out there still. Still wet. So before I mess this, I want to give you a. Just a shout out. I'm not shout out, but I might mess this name up, but we'll try. So one Chicago Kim, right?

[Kim]

That was actually pretty good.

[Brandon]

All right. Pretty good.

[Kim]

I like it down.

[Brandon]

All right.

[Kim]

You can almost be Korean.

[Brandon]

I can only speak English, much less Korean, so. Well, welcome, man. Welcome to the house. Welcome to tdpa. First time teaching with us, correct?

[Kim]

Yes.

[Brandon]

All right. That's what I thought.

[Kim]

Looking forward to it.

[Brandon]

I'm leading the way here, bringing guys in, so had a class today and then tomorrow we'll finish up the class, so. Man, to. I'm smoked mentally.

[Kim]

Yes. I warned you about the vision fatigue.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I. I left there driving home and got home and was like, what is going on? My head was spinning and it was a lot of, you know, normally shooting classes. There's, you know, there's. There's things that you take away different. Different skills or techniques and stuff. And this one man was so focused in. On. On vision.

[Kim]

Yes.

[Brandon]

But the light came on for me on the whole vision piece. And we'll go into a little bit later. First, let's introduce yourself. That way the audience knows who you are. And whatever you want to say about yourself or whatever you don't want to say about yourself. And this is. This is your time to shine.

[Kim]

Thank you. Well, I didn't have enough whiskey to introduce myself properly.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Kim]

I'm working on it right now.

[Brandon]

There you go. You keep going.

[Kim]

Like you said, you are Kim. Mind you, Kim is my.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Kim]

All right. But a lot of people call me professor or Kim. Whatever works. Yeah, If I know you're calling me, I'll answer. Yes, I'm a full time instructor. Okay. Previously, I was professional athlete, shooting sport. Okay. So more of a. Ipsic shooting.

[Matt]

Okay.

[Kim]

So now I'm not. But I was sponsored by Walther, you know, shooting for them as their shooting team, things like that.

[Matt]

Okay.

[Kim]

But now I'm turning it into more full time teaching.

[Brandon]

Teaching.

[Kim]

Well, I. I started full time teaching pretty much in 2018 when Ben Steger and I, we launched practical training group. Practical shooting training group.

[Brandon]

Ben's been on here a few times.

[Kim]

Yep. So we are full time instructors on that website too. So I've been teaching quite a long time, but it was kind of doing half competition focus and half teaching focus. But since last year, I was just going full time teaching focus. So I've been traveling a lot of places, both domestic and international. So that's been really good.

[Brandon]

Good.

[Kim]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

What. What got you into shooting? What's your background?

[Kim]

The first time I shot was in the military. Korean Army. South Korean army.

[Matt]

All right.

[Brandon]

So I did a sweat spot on that one.

[Derek]

Off.

[Kim]

Yes. For sure. Yes, I. I'm for sure. I don't want to be on the wrong side.

[Matt]

New sheriff in town. Be careful.

[Brandon]

Yeah, that's right, man.

[Kim]

So that was my introduction to firearms.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Kim]

I was just regular infantry Humvee driver.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Kim]

I had to shoot. Not crazy number, but quite a few rounds.

[Brandon]

More rifle though, I would assume. All right. Okay.

[Kim]

Yes. All rifles.

[Brandon]

All right.

[Kim]

When I came to the US I met a friend who shoots pistols and I got into pistols and it was much more fun because once it was more challenging, for sure. I find rifle shooting is much quicker process, less number of distractions, I should say. So I got into pistol and then competition shooting. That's when I decided, oh, okay. So I studied physics, engineering background, and I decided that I'm not gonna pursue that. Yeah, I'm gonna enjoy shooting time because I truly believe shooting is not just something that I love to do, but I feel like I can help a lot of people.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

How to learn how to fast. Make the process of getting good faster. Because that's really all my focus is during my class, too. I'm not necessarily there to have you just fun like, or enter trainment. Some. Some people say, yeah, I'm not so interested in that. I want to give you the most improvement on the fly. Of course, this is not just one day. You take my class, you're gonna be immediately the best shooter in the world. I'm not saying that right. But you. I can say you're gonna be the best possible because I'm going to teach you what's the most important, what's the most rewarding.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

And you're going to start focusing on that after the course, too.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I would. I would definitely say just from the one day I took. You're not going to take your class and just forget it and go on and move on to the next subject. You better dive into what you're. What you're talking about and work on the things that you. That you were laying out for us in the class and to continue on your own journey with what you're putting out. Because it's a lot like you. You have a lot of information. I see why they call you the. The professor. Just being in your class for one day because there's a lot of information. How you present it, how you just look at it, how you teach it, and then how you articulate. Because, you know, I've taken classes with Ben and other guys that are teaching the same fundamental. It's just they're saying it in a little different way. And then the way you present it and the way you say it is a little different. And I'm like, I've never heard it articulated that way. And it really resonated with me. So it's interesting. Just. That's why I love having different instructors in for the podcast for TTP Away because there's so many different things that you can take from different guys and put it all together and stuff.

[Kim]

So, yes, one thing about my class is if you actually think about it, it's not a lot of information. I don't talk that much.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

But I give very specific things.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

I break it down into pieces. Like shooting fundamentals, for example. I explain into single pieces.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

And when we are shooting a next run, all you have to focus is this. Yeah, I give you one task. It's not like I'm giving you five tasks or five different information. I give you one information, and this is all. You have to focus one at a time. And that's when people normally saying, people don't focus on one specific thing. Because generally saying practical shooting is so dynamic. There's so many different layers, so many different skill sets. You're using it in one run, but now it's being tested one by one.

[Derek]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Kim]

She's really simple. But it's not easy.

[Brandon]

No, it's not. No, it's not.

[Kim]

And I think that's where people learn so much. Even though I say, hey, this one thing is all you're going to do. But when you do that one simple thing, you actually learn so many things from that one simple thing.

[Brandon]

Yeah, you're definitely right. So the class that we brought to the Region 7, it's vision. Basically, Vision Focus is what the title was. So explain what that class is exactly, and then we'll kind of go from there for what we're teaching her.

[Kim]

Yeah. So I offer two classes, Vision Focus class and Mastery class. So this is Vision Focus class. We're going through Vision Focus class, of course, like the word, it says vision focus. So the vision is the most priority in the class. So that when you are out of my class, you understand 100% what vision focus means.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

And also the vision focus after class, everybody realizes vision focus is the most important thing about shooting. Practical shooting or whatever shooting you're doing.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Even driving. Yeah, Vision part is the most important thing. And vision part, you have to push the level of the ability so that you're not only processing visual information fast, but also you're guiding your body properly. So you're moving the red dots or gun properly.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

And the level of precision you want, but also the level of speed you want. It all comes down to vision. Depends on what you do with your vision. The whole picture of shooting in terms of speed or precision, they all change. And that's what students kind of go through.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it was. It was very strange today for me because obviously I've heard that many, many years that have been kind of going down the practical side of shooting. And I remember Ben with him a couple of years ago. The first time I met him, we're at a range. It was just us, and I was showing him the range and we were just shooting. He was talking about, hey, vision is actually one way you can control the gun. And I'm like, that doesn't make any sense to me. Like, what are you talking about? Like, it's, how does vision? And so I kind of went on that path and just kind of built and built from there and then started understanding. But today, halfway through that class, the light bulb came on. For me, it's like, oh, this is exactly because you kept saying, just focus harder. Focus this mic. Not micro, but molecule. Yeah, molecule. Focus on a molecule. On that little dot.

[Kim]

Yes, real.

[Brandon]

And I'm like, damn, now I'm even focusing more on just that one inch dot. Now I'm focusing on something even smaller than the 1 inch. And the light bulb came on because when I wouldn't focus, my gun would start moving more and then I would. It was just almost like dialing. It was almost kind of magic. It was weird kind of feeling I was having with this deal. But you did make the light bulb come on for me. And I understood it, but now I really understood it. So now I'm, I'm curious now to, to keep working on that, just to see where it's going to take me from there and stuff. So I was really impressed with that. So good, good job with that. And I was talking about some other guys today while we were loading bullets and they were the same way. They're like, man, there's just something that, that's, that's weird when I, when I really put it in this focus is what's going on and stuff. So kudos to you for kind of figuring that out and going down that path with, with the class and stuff. So what, what are you seeing with guys with the vision part of it? What's some kind of training scars that guys are coming in that you're having to go, hey, this is. Maybe you were taught not the right way. What do you, what's, what's that look like for you when you're trying to reprogram somebody?

[Kim]

So the first thing, I mean, even today, the first thing I do in my course after assessment, the first thing we dove in is setting the vision focus speed. You absolutely want to know what is maximum possible speed with your vision? A lot of people think or people contact me, hey, I'm taking your course. But I do work on a lot of vision speed and I believe I know what it is. They take my course and they walk out saying, I had no idea. I thought I had fast vision focus speed. Yeah, I thought I had vision focus. But they take my course and make them go through a couple different things. First is finding the maximum human possible speed. And people realize, oh, I was not near the maximum possible speed. And second one is, oh, when fatigue happens, I didn't know how to push through the fatigue and I let my performance, shooting performance drop because I didn't know how to maintain the shooting performance level.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

So those Two are the most. I would say people agree that they learn real quick and then they start realizing, oh, this is what I was missing for that, trying to apply it to my stuff.

[Brandon]

So we did a drill today with the vision. As far as looking at something on the target and then focusing on your finger going back and forth. Where did you come up with that at? So, and maybe explain that. So other. Because that was. You'll explain way better than I did to the audience and stuff. Matt's looking. What the hell y'all even talking about?

[Kim]

So vision focus is something that I started really deep diving since about 2020, 2019. I made a lot of drills in 2020 as well. Some of you might know, drill called track, the A zone or designated target drills, confirmation drills. When I made those, I started realizing these are all most challenging in terms of vision. If the students fail on the vision part, they're not going to be able to get it or get the good score, things like that. So that's when I started really pioneering the vision aspect of it. And of course I kind of have a process of how to build my new drills or how to come up with the curriculum. It's a funny thing since I was in South Korean army again and my routine that I built up during the time was sleeping at night. But I couldn't sleep unless I prayed. That was my routine. I pray to God. I'm a Christian. And now during the prayer, usually I fall asleep. And the drills I made, usually I ask God, God, what should I do tomorrow? What do I work on? I want to work on transition. Can you help me? But usually during the falling asleep time, I'm not sure if I'm actually asleep or not. But sometimes I have like a vision or the, you know, like a sleepwalking type of moment or dreaming type of moment.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

And I usually wake up when I see those ideas and I usually write it down, things like that. So I started going through those processes at night right before I sleep. I always think about or pray about and think about making drills or explanations. And once a while I have like a seeing through the past. Oh, when I had this moment, I felt like there was vision focus. The first one was when I was in the military. There was a bomb going off behind me. And then when the kaboom happened, I turned my head. It was exactly behind me 180 degrees. And I turned my head so fast I almost felt like my neck was almost moving at 300 mph speed, if that makes sense. Yeah, you just spin to my back so fast to look where that explosion came up. And when I did that, I was like, hey, that was 100 vision focus. First I wanted to identify with the vision. So I turned my head so fast and look at the direction, trying to identify and find the exact area that what had happened. And during the time, I was like, yeah, that is probably the maximum possible human speed I had. I turned it so fast. So now let's make a video off of maximum vision speed 2020, when I first uploaded on PSTG, was about maximizing the vision speed. There was two different exercises. One is to look 90 degrees to the right and 90 degrees to the right and also 180 degrees. So you're doing it literally twisting your head to object. Another as fast as possible to get the visual on it. And then another one is changing the focal depth to a smaller spot. And I started realizing it's more important that you change your vocal depth faster than actual head movement. Oftentimes the transition is not that big. If the transition was 180 degrees, yes, it does matter, because unless you turn your head, you can't get your eyeballs there. But typically saying you can move your eyeballs corner to corner, things like that, so it arrives pretty quick in most transition situations. So in that case, yeah, you got to find the those spots faster. And I watched a video on axillary muscle, I think it's called in our eyes, there's actual muscle to change the zoom in and out effect.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

So I started. Okay, if there's a muscle, let me find out how that muscle feels. And I started feeling the changing focal depth happens. And faster, faster it happens, the more strain feel I had in my eyes, the muscle fatigue, things like that. So I started learning. Okay, that's a sensation of it. How can I teach students to know that? So that's when I started doing the just overlap finger and go far, near, far, near as fast as possible. And faster and faster force students to change the focal depth. So you are able to change focal depth within the buzzer timing. I give you. It starts like slower.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

And it gets faster and faster. And to keep up with that, people naturally kind of increase the speed on it. And I tell people, hey, what you feel in your eyes, that's actually the muscle contraction, dilation in your eyes to zoom into specific spots or zoom out from it too. So that is how I came up with the idea.

[Brandon]

Okay. Yeah, it's. It's a. What do you say, like 30 or 40 seconds on. I mean, that was a A ball breaker for going near, far, near, far, near, far. And you feel, you feel slow at first. You're like, man, my eyes are. But you're like, man, eyes are going fast. But it just feels slow. But it, but it, it's a drill that, that I'm very curious to start working on myself and just see what that does. Because to me, I look at it, it doesn't. Shooting is one aspect of it. But also when you're talking about vision, I'm thinking about like cqb. I mean that's part of CQB is your vision is what you're seeing. That's why a guy who's done it for 10 years can beat a guy who's done it for a year because of the vision part of that, of you're able to look at things going, that's not important. That is important. That's a closed door, that's an open space. That's a person, that's a. All this stuff that you're looking at all is vision. And I think that's where the whole relating of shooting, being able to shoot and being a student and a craftsman of shooting. And then also it translates so much into CQB as far as the. What you're looking for and how fast your eyes are moving and not just staring at a damn wall. It's blank, it's blank. Move on to the next thing that you have to look in the room and stuff. Kind of like the shooting part of it. My eyes are here and then they're, they're, they're going on to this, this, this and this. So to me, it always, it always interloops together. So that's what I kind of take out of the hole vision stuff as well. For me, the. So with that being said, are you doing that like at 20 yards as well? Like you can. Is there?

[Kim]

Yes, absolutely. Okay, so one of the exercise I mentioned in the class was what one of the example was, hey, if you stop at a red light and you have like a minute or two to wait, then pick an object across the street, maybe across the car, and pick three objects, one on the dash so you can go near, really far, kind of medium and back and forth, things like that. So you want to practice all the distances that you want to have the development to happen.

[Brandon]

Okay, so today we had A what, a 1 inch paster up that you were kind of using as a vision focus part on there, but you were kind of even going even deeper than that and you were calling it. Yeah, we just Said the word molecule size. Yeah, Molecules, molecule size. So when you're looking at that, are you, what are you actually looking at? Because you're saying molecule size, but obviously we can't see a molecule. But you're just trying to say, hey, focus even deeper into that small.

[Kim]

Exactly.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Kim]

The focusing more deeper into that is the cure. Yes. Trying to look at a molecule size is a concept of it, which is pretty not. It's not going to happen. We can't see the molecule.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Kim]

But the end result I want happen to every student is the continuous focus, but at a higher level every single second. So what I describe is you need to put more effort per second every single shot to even look in a smaller spot, even try to zoom in. But not staying zoomed in on a spot, but continuous zooming in effort.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

That is a key of it. If you quit doing that meaning, oh, I'm going to set my effort at a certain level. I'm going to set a small spot at a certain level. I'm just going to stay there. Then your focus effort is staying level.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

When your focus effort is staying level, your performance actually drops. If your focus level increases or effort of the focus increases, the performance of your shooting will stay the same.

[Derek]

Okay.

[Kim]

Of course if you have great focus, your performance will stay high level. But as soon as you stop the effort of focusing harder, performance will start degrading. That's how it works.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Because your vision already fatigues per second. The only way to push through the fatigue is to put more effort of vision focus. Meaning part of it is to zoom in, continue zooming harder. Zoom in harder.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

To look for a smaller spot. Even smaller spot. That's what it means.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Now I was toying around with that. I could tell when I wasn't, the bullets weren't going what I was one of them. Where the, where I wanted them to go. And I would go back, I would keep putting in my head, all right, focus smaller, focus smaller. Like stared that damn thing and then all of a sudden it would just come back in. What was interesting to me is that we, we stayed up at the five yard line for the most of the class of what we were doing. And then all of a sudden you're like, hey, we're going to shoot doubles and we're going to go back from the five and then we're going to. Basically it's a competition with everybody and how far we can go back. You got it. And I'm like, damn, man, we haven't shot. But that Whole focus in on. We got back to what the 25 my group did, and it's like, well, damn, everything is in there. It was. It's crazy, Joe, just how we worked close up at first just to get the vision part of it, and then it translates into 5 yards or 25 yards or whatever yard line we were on. That's what was pretty impressive to me. That just. It's like just focusing on this. Don't worry about anything else. That's all I. That's all I did the whole time. And that's usually a. I always kind of forget that sometimes. Always my mind drifts off to something else. But that was a good reminder. I was. I was pretty shocked how that. How that turned out today with. Just went from 5 to all the way to 25 really quick. And it's just. It was fine. No, no. No worries at all.

[Derek]

So.

[Kim]

Yeah. And pretty much, if you understand vision focus, everything becomes simple.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Yes.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And then when you. You demoed one with the. With a. Just a shitty T grip, teacup grip. And. But you were very, very focused in on what you were shooting, and your griefs were really good. So, yeah, that was one of those other things. I like instructors that demo the wrong way, demo the right way, demo just different ways that students might do it. Because then you're like, oh, okay. And the light bulb comes on like, okay, that's what he's looking for. Or that's not what he's looking for. So you did a good job today of doing that. I was really happy to see that because I know all the other students are. When that happens, you're like, oh, okay, that's what I'm doing. Or, oh, that's what I need to do. And then you do. You're like, damn it. Yep, I still need to do it that way. But. But that was good. I like that. So good job to you.

[Kim]

Thank you.

[Brandon]

So the. We were talking about before you got here, like metrics of shooting pack timers, because you talked about some split times a day, you talked about, hey, it takes what,.06 seconds for a gun slide back and stuff? So for guys out there that just take the pack timer and just use it, just, hey, this is my time. This is how fast I am, as opposed to what really should we be doing with these numbers and times? To me, I look at it, hey, this is data collection. This is. This is numbers that I can use to improve myself, to see improvement or to understand how things break down and stuff. What's your thought? A process on that kind of stuff. When it comes to the metrics of.

[Kim]

The pack timer, yes, it shows you a lot. Of course, even if you use pack timer, you can do things kind of cheating way and then make the time. But one of the things we mentioned, cycle time of a slide, it's 0.06 visual response time. Google says 0.2 seconds plus minus if you're good, athletic or not. So judging by those information, you can judge more realistically if that makes sense.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

So in confirmation drill, I have specific goal times. If you don't make those goal times, you're not in the game. And those times and the accuracy, if you're doing it in the wrong way, you may fake your part times. However, your accuracy will not be there. Yeah, because one of the things I explain about corrective shooting is, is that if you slow down with your vision or if you have no urgency in your vision, the dot will not follow to that molecule size spot fast enough. And now to fake the part time. Now you have no time to correct anything. You have to shoot right away. Then the accuracy is not going to be there because you're not correcting anything. However, if you have good urgency, vision is strong, focus is harder each second. Then the red dot will follow your spot faster and faster or even if it's realistically the same time, then your gun is back down on the spot fast. And now you have time to correct things or confirm things. So that's how you have to go by the pack time timer and also the accuracy you're shooting during confirmation drill.

[Brandon]

Yeah, you definitely break it down to a science of like this is important because there's just some things that you can't get. You can't cheat. I mean the slide is going to go as fast as the slide is your vision. I mean it's just as only as human possible. So there's just already things that are built into the time that are already on on that. So I think it's understanding that and, and going, hey, this is why I gotta be able to be efficient with my vision. This is why I have to be efficient with my indexing of the gun. Because there's just certain things that are gonna be there that are adding time to it. And then you take law enforcement, more times than not, we're reacting to someone pulling a gun on us, already shooting at us, already running at us with a knife or whatever the threat may be. So we're most of the time, I mean not all the time, but most of the time we're responding to some threat that's stimulating us to draw our gun and shoot. So that's where I go back to those, those, those times on pack timers and things like that are so important to understand what the metrics actually doing and what skill set that you're doing and, and how efficient to be with your gun handling and things like that. Because we were talking earlier like some guys just use it as a dick measuring contest. Look, here's what my blah blah, blah time is or here's what this is. I'm like, okay, that's great. But for law enforcement, what are you really doing with that? Are you, are you using a competition rig? Are you using your duty holster rig? Are you using this tricked out gun? Are you using your, your issue gun that you had from the department? So I think there's a lot of things that gas kind of kind of fudge when it comes to training that really they're only kind of screwing themselves because at the end of the day like you, you just shoot a Glock. I mean, yeah, nothing fancy. You just shoot your Glock.

[Kim]

Same holster as you.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I appreciate guys that are coming out there that, that can come to law enforcement and go, hey, I want to give you what, what I, I want to show you what I can do in the same that you're doing it in. And I think that's important, so keep that up. I'm glad you, you do that and stuff like that.

[Matt]

So if I can just say that I think that's very important. You see a lot of instructors and it's not to say they couldn't do it, but you don't ever see them do it. I, I know there are world class shooters that no matter what gun, a stock Glock in a safari land level three holster, they can still shoot very well. I don't think there's any doubt about that. But when you carry that gun for a living and either you're mandated by the department or like you're, you're limited to what you can carry, you know, or what options you can have, you know, there's some departments still don't allow red dots. I mean, you know, so and then whether it, whether you agree with it or not, they just, they, they need to see that you can do it like with a bone stock Glock or you know, or somewhat stock and a regular, like a traditional, you know, duty style holster. Because then they're like, see, it can be done. I think that's very important and not being your class I didn't see that. But I appreciate that because like I said, there are a lot of great shooters out there that even with the wearing my rig, they can probably still beat me. But you don't know that until you see it. And I think what happens is I get it. You know, they draw a thousand times a week in training. It's just economy emotion. They don't want to, you know, wear that holster. They don't have to because they're not a police officer or they're whatever. So I understand that. But I think, especially when you are training law enforcement, I think it's important to validate what you're showing and saying in demoing that, because any good instructor will demo what they want you to do. Right. We've all been to instructors or classes where the guy really didn't talk about it. I mean, didn't show it. He just talked about like, I want you to do this. Now. That's saying you got to show every little macro fracture of and what we want you to do. But as a whole, they need to see, this is what I'm asking you to do here. Let me demo what it should look like. And then other, you know, good instructors can say, look, here's what you're doing. This is why you're slow, or this is why you're having trouble. They can diagnostic, you know, or use that as a diagnostic tool to show that. Does that make sense?

[Kim]

Yes.

[Matt]

And so I appreciate that because being on this side of it, we want to be able to replicate what you're doing in our.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Matt]

You know, our gear. Yes, that makes sense.

[Kim]

And I think training with, you know, for example, if my student is military or whatever, competition shooters before that, I don't want to show up. Just practicing once with it and acting like I know know it all.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

I want to spend months of training with a specific year. So that's what I do nowadays. I just. Most of the time, because I already have competition gear already built in me, especially last year when I started teaching a lot of law enforcement, military. That's when I started just using. Even in my local competition, I would show up. They. They give me a hard time calling it Timmy gear.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Tactical gear.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

But I'm competing with that.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

My not now my understanding and also teaching how to verbalize things is more articulate than before. Is more like, okay, I practice like a thousand drop. For me, thousand draw is not enough.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

For me, it's got to be tens, at least tens of thousand to understand more stuff.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

So when I communicate with the shooter, if I have a good understanding of it, it's not necessarily, necessarily a better teaching in my opinion, but I can save a lot of time by explaining only the necessary things. Because in my class, like even today a lot of people shot over 800 rounds and by tomorrow we're going to be shooting 1500 rounds. There's not that many classes that shoot 1500 rounds in two days. It is impossible. If I start telling stories or saying things that I think it might be true. No, I can't do any of that. I have to tell only the necessary information because I truly believe experience beats the information. No matter how much information you have, if you don't have experience, you don't know the taste of it.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

So no, I can, my hands can definitely contest to 800 plus round shot today. And I'm like, man, tomorrow's gonna hurt. And that's with you doing demos and, and, and you had some demos the day that you're like, yep, I messed this one up. I had trigger freeze on that. And as a student I'm like, I appreciate that because I've had a few, few trigger freezes myself and my shooting career and stuff. So I do appreciate that. And I think it goes back to someone who's put in enough work and gone on their own shooting journey. Like you have to get to the level that you have. There's a different level that when you show up and you start shooting that it's just naturally. See, because you put in so much work, you put in so much time and I love to hear what you're talking about. Like, man, now I'm doing this in a police duty rig because I want to be able to relate to the end user of a law enforcement or military guy that we're teaching to me, man, kudos to you. Because you don't have to do that. You don't have to, but you choose to. And I, I appreciate that that means a lot because we see it.

[Kim]

I mean, I don't personally care about how fancy I will look or how sexy I will look when I demo. I care more about how, how are these gonna people learn now? How can I make them one more percentage bump in their performance or improvement? Yeah, all I care is how they will learn.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I was talking to instructor and, and he used to shoot a pretty high end gun and then he went back to just a regular Glock because he got tired of. Well, it's just because you, you shoot this. It's just because you Shoot that. It's like, yeah, okay. If. If shooter A and shooter B are same skill set and shooter A has this high end gun and shooter B just has a regular Glock. Yeah. He's going to perform it because the gun is just. It shoots better. There's less to. Or there's. You can get away with more.

[Kim]

Absolutely.

[Brandon]

Even though you have the same skill set. So yeah, you're gonna perform a little bit better, but when it comes to just. You have the same skill set level. So his point was, man, I want to be able to show these guys, hey, I can do it with this regular Glock that way. There's no freaking excuse which, which makes sense to me and stuff. So yeah, now I do, I do have the Walther PDP5.

[Kim]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Just factor. I'm like, that gun shoots so damn good. Just factory gun. I'm like, man.

[Kim]

So one of the, one of the things. So when I started teaching military in my local area, one of the shooter shooting a Glock fairly factory, then he was like, hey, can I try your pdp? And he shot my pdp and he was telling me, oh, wow, I wonder why you shoot this well, And I started thinking, yeah, I think a lot of people will kind of make an excuse of the gun. Although it's a Walther plastic and barely, you know.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Fairly heavy trigger. But smooth, very smooth.

[Brandon]

Oh, that's man. Like I might shoot mine tomorrow because I love that gun so much. I just got it about, I don't know, about eight months ago. Six months ago.

[Kim]

Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I love the gun.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Kim]

But one of the reason why, you know, the Walther contract ended.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

And I didn't re up because of that. I want to focus more on just teaching.

[Brandon]

Teaching.

[Kim]

And I want to be able to shoot whatever the gun, the department I'm teaching, or whoever audience I'm teaching for that.

[Brandon]

So do you find yourself now teaching? Yeah. You find yourself now teaching dummy. So now that you find yourself teaching, is your training regiment different looking than when you were competing?

[Kim]

It is slightly different, yes.

[Brandon]

And how's that? What did you have to change?

[Kim]

Yes. So the first thing is the accuracy requirement is much higher for my teaching standards.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Kim]

For example, if you shoot competition anywhere, two hits in the alpha is alpha. However, in terms of accuracy, is that the best accuracy? No. Yes. Points are the same anywhere to alphas, but I wanted to make sure every single shot is more accountable to my standards and for teaching, of course, I do tell people, hey, this is the standards you got to make it so my training right now has a little more high level of standards shooting, so it could be a little less sloppy.

[Derek]

Okay.

[Kim]

Than competition for that. That's. That's one difference. But I do still teach mastery class, which is focusing on performance.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Kim]

It's not necessarily a competition class, but it's more on performance where I assign people different shot accountability. If you're shooting uspsa, you might know as a hit factor where accuracy is more important on a certain hit factor and certain hit factor speed is more important. So shot accountability is kind of a similar concept where you have high shot accountability. If I simulate that and tell you, hey, that's your shot accountability, high shot accountability, then you have to create more accuracy. You have to be accountable on every single shot. However, if I say low accountability or he factor is now different, now speed is more important, and that's where you confirm less on your shots based on how loose you can be or depends on your confirmation levels for that accuracy. So in my practice, that is definitely part of it, especially when it comes to I. After this ttpoa, I have a master class for five days long. So two mastery class, one private class. So I have to do that during the class. So my training is kind of depends on what I'm teaching next. And also I still kind of compete big major matches only like nationals.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Kim]

So for those, I kind of redefine my accuracy acceptability.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Kim]

So instead of, hey, even though if it's alpha in class, I want to get two alphas next to each other, however, in competition, that doesn't really matter. What that means is I'm not necessarily focusing less. I am allowing myself to be more efficient. So I'm shooting on the move or falling out of position, things like that do something to make it efficient. Stepping around each shot, things like that, to get to the next position quicker. Things like that.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah. Now, what would you say to a law enforcement guy who's like, hey, how does this competition style shooting relate to what I'm doing? Because, man, I can't miss, guys, I can't do this. Even though we miss all the time. Don't get me started on that. But how, what would you say to that as far as, hey, how do I. How do I take what you're doing to make it fit for what my job is?

[Kim]

The very first one, and I think this is one of the factor that a lot of other people who's in the military or law enforcement kind of agree is the pressure. Local match in the beginning, yes. You Will probably have pressure. But the higher level match like state championship or area championship, national championship, the higher level major match you go, the more pressure you will feel. First you invest a lot to train, a lot of money and everything. And also everybody is watching you. That's one thing. I mean not really, but yeah, you kind of feel.

[Brandon]

Yeah, you feel like it.

[Kim]

Yes. And that hand jitter, first couple stages, usually people have the jitterness or more pressure in the beginning. And you learn how to perform under those pressure. Then it's going to be applying, just operating under pressure no matter what. But that is a practice of practicing under pressure. And you'll quickly find out the more muscly you want to be or the more mechanical or feel oriented you want to be under pressure. It's not going to work. You must be vision focused. Vision is the only thing you should be able to control hundred percent. Because under pressure you lose a feel, you lose a sensation. When you cheater, your body don't listen to you anymore. So vision has to be the controlling the cpu. You got to learn how to vision focus for that.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Otherwise you will not be able to shoot well under pressure. Over there.

[Brandon]

Now I'm sure you're on Instagram and you see police shootings and stuff.

[Derek]

Correct.

[Brandon]

Like you see those things come on the reels or whatever and you see a shooting and it's some dude pulls a gun and it's. He dumps a magazine and then reloads and then dumps the other half. When you're looking at that, what are you thinking? Like man, what, what went wrong with this guy's training? What could you do to help like law enforcement not do this dumb. What do you see it as? You teach law enforcement now.

[Kim]

And so I mean this is not unknown. One of the known thing is the quals are not direct representation of how you're going to be actually using your firearm under situation.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

So you must train on the same situation where you might be shooting a lot of predictive shooting. So part of the things we worked on today was a lot of predictive shooting.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Yes. And applying that to higher accuracy or so called confirmation three or corrective shooting.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Where a lot of times when people are shooting, especially even today I see half the students, their gun is following or returning after recoil. Really slow.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

But when people are shooting predictively really fast shooting their muzzles, the muzzle of the gun snaps back down. Snaps back down to the target. Of course, oftentimes it was more compensation which we fixed by one shot return drill Things like that. But when we are shooting more accurate shots, corrective shooting, immediately everything slowed down.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

That's where I had to tell people, hey, don't lose vision focus. Your urgency is gone. You're losing vision focus. So we had a couple processes to bring that vision focus into more accurate shots as well. So you're not producing accurate shot by slowing down, which you're not going to do that under pressure on the situation.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

And everybody's learning how to confirm slightly more while the gun is snapping back down to where you look.

[Derek]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt]

In comparison between civilian shooters and law enforcement, is that what you would say would be the biggest, you know, difference between the two, you know, or do you think is a combination of that, something else. What would you say the biggest difference between civilian shooters and then law enforcement, you know, in your classes, as far as what you're asking them to do? That makes sense.

[Kim]

Yes. So if we directly compare to USPSA shooters, the qualification or they call it classification, it's, it's going from D class all the way to master and Grandmaster. And speed of their classification is absolutely a must to achieve higher level of classification. Yeah, but like I mentioned in the calls, there is no real speed component to that level.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's when there is a time, it's pretty, pretty generous.

[Kim]

Yes. So a lot of people kind of start, okay, this is the time I have to make to be a Grandmaster. For example, I got to, at least at maximum, I got to shoot five seconds or less. Let me force myself to shoot that five seconds because that's uncompromisable and let me figure out how to get the office. That is pretty common process of developing USPSA shooters to be a higher level class. But I think a lot of the times that's not the case outside of uspsa. So that is part of the difference in terms of speed requirement.

[Matt]

Would it be safe to say with Sven or usbca they have certain classifications. So therefore there's a benchmark, you know, there's a standard that is associated with each one.

[Kim]

Yes.

[Matt]

Whereas say with us it's, our targets are graded when, you know, from the, when you qualify. But there's a minimum standard. You have to make this estate mandates and if you make that, everything else is fine. Now there's personal pride and you know that with your guys and you know, depends on where you work, you want to shoot well. But as far as their job, you know, and there's, there's, there's no classification. It's not like the state of Texas rates you as a better shooting police officer than another one. Does that make sense? You know what I mean? And so you think because of that classification exists in the competitive field that it challenges people to say I want to ascend to a higher level, you know what I mean? And you think that's probably part of that because there's there, there's no, I don't want to say there's no in, there's no, there's no initiative based other than the state and therefore the department makes you shoot at a certain rate. Okay. At a certain level. And depending on how each round is scored, like for us it's a 50 round Qualcomm course. Each round is worth two points and you have to achieve a certain grade on the qual to pass. You have to do it. The state is at least once a year. So you have to do that. Whereas if you do that, if you choose the minimum and I shoot, let's say I shoot the highest possible score of 100 by 50 and they shoot the minimum. But you're still passing. It's still just check. It's a check that you pass. You know what I mean? And versus over here, like that is a certain classification. Yeah, and I know there's, there's other. I know some departments that have sent, you know, stuff to me. They say, hey, part of their promotional process and part of assignments is based on their physical fitness standards and some of them, their pistol scores. And I was like, I would like that would, that would, they would just, they would be an earthquake, you know, if they try to, you know, do that. Because they're saying you're not going to be promoted because you didn't shoot well enough last year on your spring qual, man, they'd be, people be riding.

[Brandon]

I would love that. Yeah. But you know, it'd be awesome.

[Matt]

But there's no. Again, I, I shot my minimum score. I mean, you know, I'm good. And there's nothing you or the department or the state can do to me.

[Brandon]

Well, what's crazy too is that you could be from department A and department F down there down the road. They have a totally new standard of doing things. They have a total new number. So it's a scorable target according to Texas. And that could be anything. So you're like, man, even within department, it's, it's not even the same thing. That's what's scary too because you go to some places, you're like, what the hell?

[Matt]

Well, we have officers that when we Go up to qual because we just show up and, you know, you got 3,000 plus something officers. So there's large relays.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Of, you know, a bunch of us. And like, they won't want to shoot next to us on the call because they know they're not going. They feel like they're not going to shoot well. And so I'm like, whether I'm standing here or not has nothing to do with what you're going to do, but it's that perceived pressure like you're talking about, like, they know that in their mind I'm not going to shoot as well as the person to the left or the right of me that applies that pressure to them, even though it has nothing to do.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Matt]

If I just stepped off the line, it's not going to change what they're doing. But they perceive it and is pressure to them. And like, I've will. We'll go and put our targets up and, you know, and look, any of us can throw around. It happens, you know, we all have bad days, but they'll see you go up and post your target and they'll look at where you are and then they'll bump down a couple of targets because they don't want to shoot next to a guy that they believe is a better shooter than him.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Matt]

And you know, when we should be.

[Brandon]

Instead of asking, hey, like, well, yeah, help me out or what are you doing? Or it is sad.

[Matt]

And, you know, so when you talk about pressure, you know what they perceive that is. That is. That is real. And I, you know, after. After all these years, I still see it.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

I know people that whatever the minimum score is for the qual, as long as they hit that, it's a great day.

[Matt]

I know people, they get like, they get. They get nervous, they're upset, they're like a. They're like a stomachache and they're like sweating it. And I'm like, it's not about passing it. It's about. Because I gotta shoot better than these guys because I'll never hear the end of it. So, you know, that's the pressure. It's not about. It's shooting well. But like, to them that would. That is a different level that they're not even. No, they're. They're like, you know, a bad score for. And I hate to say it this way, but what we would consider not a great score. They're like, that's a great score.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Matt]

I'm like, not in this crew because. Because they Will let you know about it every day that they outshot you. So it's comp. It's competitive, you know.

[Brandon]

Well, it's like today I get on the line and I'm shooting next to Chansey. I mean, anybody knows chance, that dude can shoot. And I'm sitting next to him and I'm shooting. I'm like, all right, what's he doing? I'm looking at him. Okay. And I'm asking him questions. I'm like, man, you're. You shoot phenomenal. I'm gonna ask you questions, man. I'm like, I'm not scared to shoot next to you. I want to shoot next. Like, there's a lot of guys in that class that are good shooters. I'm like, I want to go to classes where there's good shooters. I want to be able to talk to these guys.

[Matt]

There's going to be a group in the group. Like, we have got the same thing.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Like, you know, hold my own. But like, there were. There are guys that work with us that are. Any day of the week can outshoot me on either platform. And they're. I mean, they are just a better shooter.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Matt]

And, you know, and if you beat them, you're like, oh, that's a good day for me. You actually got them, but you just watch them and you're just like, they're at a different level. They just really are. And it's, you know, and you're like, man, you know, you're trying to be there, trying to get to that, but, you know.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I love it. Like, I had the side conversation as we're loading bullets, you know, we're talking about your class. We're talking about this, hey, how did you, you know, shoot this one? Or what did you think about the way you said this? Or. To me, that's just being a good student. I mean, like, you should be doing that all the time. But there's some guys that, man, just get intimidated by it.

[Kim]

But anyway, so one thing critical in our. In my class, I use this word quite often. Comfort zone.

[Derek]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Kim]

So you. You've heard it quite a few times.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

So in order to have somebody focus, first thing it takes is their willingness. If they're not willing to focus, they can't, like, focus. You can't actually really make people focus unless they're willing or they're motivated. It's either or it's a self voluntary thing, or they face some certain situation. So they're almost like there's no option. You have to focus yeah. So like bomb going off could be one of the reasons, or some external motivating factor could be a reason. But in order to do itself voluntarily without any weird situation happen. Comfort zone is a blocking component. Everyone is built to have comfort zone because that's how human built. And if you don't know how to push through the fatigue, then your chance of experiencing the true maximum focus level is very small. So you need to learn how to push through the comfort zone. So one of the analogy was, hey, during a marathon, there's comfort zone. And then you've pushed through that miles, your body or your brain tells you, hey, you're gonna fatigue, your muscles gonna hurt, stop, rest, drink water. But if you say, no, fuck you, I'm gonna push through it, then they actually disappear. The aches kind of go away. And then if they come back, that's actually failure and you might die, actually.

[Matt]

So it's a fine line. What are you saying? Yeah, yeah.

[Brandon]

So if you push, I think I don't run marathons.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Kim]

The fatigue is there for the reason. Comfort zone is there for the reason. To protect you.

[Matt]

Well, I think that goes back. When you do train and you push yourself, you figure out where that is.

[Kim]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Because people that, you know, whether you're lifting or running or just whatever, guys that regularly work out and do pt, they have a good idea of where they are.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Matt]

So they walk in here today and go, hey, we're going to go do this. They're like, no, I'm not though, or I'm good or whatever. They know. But I was, I would suggest to you that the vast majority of people like, like, could you do £185 twice on the bench? They're like, I don't have a clue. Yeah, you know? And you're like, how do you know? How do you not know that? You know, to us, we're like, oh, absolutely, you could do that or whatever. Or could you run a mile in eight minutes? Under eight minutes?

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Matt]

They're like, I haven't done that since junior high, you know. Or they're like, I have no clue. Because they're not out in the world in the wild checking, you know, and assessing themselves. And that's what training does. And that's what, that's what your class does. Regardless of what you walk in there with, with your assessment of your own self, I'm guessing, you know, being in training is that you're going to show them this is essentially where you are at this very moment in time. And it's something I wrote down here, I'm guessing in two days you can't fix everything. Not that you're even trying. What you're trying to do is you're trying to either expose them or to show them where there is a deficiency. Or like, hey, here's where you are. If you work on this, eventually this will get better. It's not going to happen in this class. And I think we talked about this last time. People want the easy button. They want you to say, kim, give me this one thing that fixes this. And you're like, okay, here's one thing that will assist you, but it is not the one thing, is one of the many things that you have to work on. And it's a labor of love, right? And I'm willing to bet that wherever you are right now is not where you were five years ago and where you won't be in five years from now. You're constantly working and refining that craft. And I think, again, I hate to say this, but we in our industry a lot of times look at that easy button. You know, when red dots became pretty prevalent to pistols, I heard people say, well, now I'm going to be a much better shooter because of this. I'm like, you weren't a very good shooter before that. It may help you a little bit, but it's not going to fix a lot of the problems. And I think kind of the nudist has worn off and people go, man, I'm still not, you know, I don't know. I mean, is that fair to say?

[Kim]

Not for my class. Actually. My class, within an hour or two, I show them. This is the magic button. So first I do the assessment. So to see where they are at end. During assessment. For example, drill, doubles drill is one of them. When people shoot doubles drill, a lot of the shooters, the shots are going all over the alpha zone. All over the alpha zone. Within about an hour or two, when they shoot again, about the same pace, every single shot goes to a tiny little thumb size hole. Yeah, you agree with that?

[Brandon]

Yeah, I would definitely say my mine and other guys, I was watching it shrink in, but it was, I'm like, I was the same. I was like, what's going on here?

[Kim]

Yes. That's how I motivate shooters. I found the ways, a couple of different ways to make the shooting drastically amazing world champion level.

[Matt]

Well, I think what I was, the point I was making more than anything else is that you show them, but like, it's not going to like, you have to constantly work at it like, oh, yeah, that's the point. Like, they want the easy button. Tell me what to do and then I'll just do this and I'll just put it on cruise control. That's not what you're doing. You're like, these are the things that will help you, but you've constantly got to work on them and you got to keep on them because again, you, I work with you today because you're standing over my shoulder telling me, matt, do this, Matt, do that. Like, okay, now I'm good. But if I don't retain that and don't continue to work on that refine that, you drive away next week. And I don't, I don't come back to it, you know, saying, so they won't be. And people want the easy button where show me how to do it here and then I can just put on cruise control and let it happen. That's not what we do.

[Kim]

Absolutely not.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Matt]

And so, yeah, I think, I think that's kind of what I was trying to get at. Yeah. You know, so yeah, you, you're, you're saying, hey, Matt, do this and you, you'll get better. But I have to retain that and continue to apply it going down, you know, down, you know, next week, next month, next year. Because if I don't, what's the point? And then. Yeah, and so that's, that's what I was getting at. They won't. Yeah, you're not going to fix everything just in one day. Unless I continuously work on it.

[Kim]

Yes. And that's the warning actually pretty much follows almost immediately after people shoot. Amazing, right?

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

So I, I warn people, to be able to do this on demand, you have to spend about six months to a year dedicate for vision focus. And there's certain exercises I prescribe to shooters so they know what to do like the 10 times a day kind of exercise. Yeah, like one minute per time. So it's 10 minutes total. That's which is not a lot in 24 hours.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

But when I make them shoot, of course I'm guiding them. And also part of the thing in the beginning is I pull the trigger for them too.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

So all they have to is focus on the vision aspect. And then the bullet starts to go to a small spot, tiny little spot. And then people start shooting really amazing. And then as I keep pulling the trigger, the bullet hole gets bigger. And that's why I remind them, hey, zoom in harder. Find this small, even smaller molecule spot. The red dot must not be near it, but on the molecule spot, not nearby it. That's when people try to guide that red dot to a molecule size spot and match that spot on the molecule spot instead of red dot lingering around it. That's when the bullet goes around it, not on it. Those kind of guidance is there. Yeah, but like I said, I warned them.

[Brandon]

That was crazy today. Shooting or me aiming and you pulling my trigger shooting doubles. I'm like, what the hell is going on? Because I'm like, how do you know where my dot is? Back to where I'm looking at it. It was crazy to me, but when I was focused in on it, it just went there. I still don't understand how you were doing that, but it's crazy. But when I wouldn't, when I would lose the focus and start chasing my dot or like just have brain farts, then it just started opening it up. I'm like, it's crazy that you.

[Matt]

That that's why he is an instructor.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's. I mean, like, it's a different level of instruction, man. Because I was watching everybody. I'm like, this is crazy how you're doing that. You're shooting doubles.

[Matt]

Well, you're always going to get better. Somebody's. This train is helping you.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Matt]

You know, again, because of money constraints and time, it's hard to have somebody this caliber with you. That's why when you do have the opportunity, listen what they're saying, take it in.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Matt]

And then go down rain with it. Because again, if I just only do it for the two days I'm with you, I don't come back to that, then you're just wasting his time. You know, as good instructors don't have time to waste time like that.

[Brandon]

And you're one of the other guys too, that you put all your out on YouTube and, and there's no secrets. You're. You're not like, oh man, this is, this is my stuff and you can't have it unless you pay 19.95amonth or, you know, just to hear this one next thing. Because I was watching some, some YouTube videos actually this morning when I was at work. I've watched a few YouTube videos. I'm like, oh, we're gonna do this when I wasn't hurt. But it's all for free. I appreciate that because I'll take that and continue to work on that from some videos and YouTube and everything.

[Kim]

So I actually don't do a whole lot of social media. I actually do most of the Stuff on training group. Technically saying majority of my material, they are paid on training group.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Because you got to be a member.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Kim]

But I do have videos or, for example, the teaching footages.

[Brandon]

Yeah, y. I saw your. I guess on your website. It had. Yeah, YouTube, like. Yeah. Vision on there. Grip was on there, I think. Was it YouTube or.

[Kim]

Yeah, it's a recall management deep dive.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was like 10 different little videos.

[Kim]

And I have a. Actually, it's on Ben's YouTube channel. Ben has the footage. The full footage of combo class I did with Ben.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Two years ago. I watched a little bit of that.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Well, I think you have all the videos you want is the diagnostic of them being able to stand here, the same brand. And you need to do this versus commit. I might be doing something totally different again. That's why you're paying for that. Because it's not hard to replicate his drills. Doesn't mean you're going to get anything out of it. You know, he could draw it up right now and film it. We like, okay, we can redo the whole thing, but if he's not there, or whoever the instructor is. Again, I've had opportunity to have great instructors. I had bad ones.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Matt]

You know, and we. If you had a bad one, you realize, you know, early on we had a guy come in that we paid money for. And again, not that he wasn't police officer, you know, he's not. But, like, everything that he did was so geared. It was within 30 minutes, everybody's like that, we're done, you know, and it was. It was one of the worst two days we've ever had. Like, we spent money on this and he really couldn't help you. He really couldn't. He was just like, see monkey do, you know, kind of thing, and just like, just do what I'm doing. Like, because he was a fast shooter, he's like, well, okay. And then if anybody struggled or had trouble, he's like, well, you just need to do it faster. You just need to. You just need to, you know, work the gun faster. Work. He always say, work the gun Worked. Again. I'm like, well, again, what's that mean? This weapon is quite capable of doing this. Obviously, the input I'm putting into it is wrong or it's not working. That's what you're here to do. You know, I don't need a mechanic. Tell me something wrong with the car. I know something's wrong with it. I need him to die. You know, I think that's A lot of times what people miss with. With instructors is, like, just shooting his drill is not going to help you.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt]

It may warm you up, but it's not going to fix whatever problems you have. You need the guy there to say this.

[Brandon]

This is.

[Matt]

It's. It's abc. One, two, three.

[Kim]

Yes, there are many instructors, but there's different types of instructors. Of course, some type of instructor, they're there to kind of, okay, that's a good idea. That's a good drill. I'm going to combine all these and then teach them, which is not a bad thing at all in my opinion. However, it's very important the instructors actually understand those drills and what those drills teach and what those drills are for. And one of the drill that's most frequently referenced, one of my drills is confirmation drills. There's different types of confirmation drills. Today we worked on the recoil, focus, recall confirmation, and transition confirmation. And there's other types of confirmation drills where it's more like a draw or presentation and any type, they're really referenced. So if you type confirmation drill on YouTube, you'll find different types of confirmation drill. I don't typically comment on them. I usually actually say, hey, instructor, whoever, thank you for using it. I'm glad you understand it. Or, I'm glad you're using it. But sometimes when I watch those videos and this guy is almost copying my words, the original old confirmation drill from 2019, copying by word, by word. And I know the first one, you know, usually the first one is not the best one. So I refined those confirmation concepts, and I tell this guy, hey, you know the confirmation drill, it should be actually this. You got to shoot after correcting things or responding to this. And I have conversations where instructor says, no, I don't care. This is not my intention. Like, this is what I'm trying to teach, or this is my background. This is my experience, so that correctiveness is not necessary. Yeah, like, okay, I'm clear. This guy doesn't understand what confirmation drills for.

[Derek]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kim]

Yes. So in that kind of situation, I would say you really try to find an instructor that actually try to understand the drill. Not only practicing on himself, but also, like, maybe ask the instructors, okay, how you teach confirmation levels. Yeah, things like that. In fact, I actually have a couple bodies that I talk on the phone few times. I don't know if you know, Rob Epiphania. We talk on the phone quite a bit of times, and there's quite a bit of instructors actually call me up and like, hey, I Want to use your confirmation drill. But I am saying this this way. Do you think this. I'm understanding it, right?

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

There were quite a few people who called me up and actually before making film for that talking.

[Brandon]

I respect that.

[Kim]

Definitely. I respect it a lot too. But there are so many instructors also on the Internet, just copy whatever people saying and they use it.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Without understanding.

[Matt]

Well, if you ever put a course of fire together for a class, whether it be a one day, three day, whatever the drills that you develop or come up with or whatever how you apply them, you're. You're. You're assessing or looking for a certain thing. The people sitting back at 25 yard line watching you shoot this may go well. They're doing this drill because of, because of this. It may have nothing to do with what that really is. You're. You're assessing something else. And to the, the layman or people who are not uneducated about what they're looking at or don't take the time to say, hey, Kim, what is it you're looking for here? They just see this. Okay, well, this drill is to. You're shooting devils here and devils, whatever the case may be, like, I understand what he's doing here. It's like, that's a complete diagnostic tool or whatever it is that you're doing with it has nothing to do with how fast. Whatever.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Matt]

But in their mind, this is what they're doing. So again, they go out and replicate that because everybody's lazy and cheap and doesn't.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

In my opinion, if an instructor is a very good instructor. For example, if you watch my 2019 version of confirmation drill, I think that instructor should be able to say, hey, Kim, I watched only this 2019 version, but I think this should be this. I think you can improve on whatever confirmation level 2 or 3. You can change the verbal leech or you can. You're skipping a step, which actually 2019 version, there's quite a bit skipped processes, which is especially confirmation 3. Corrective shooting was important to develop as a Corrective.

[Brandon]

Yeah, that was a. I've never really heard it called corrective shooting.

[Kim]

That is something that I came up with. Yeah.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I was like, oh, me and a couple of guys on our team that were in the class were like, that's interesting way to present that. I liked it though, because it really, it made sense to me what you're actually doing.

[Kim]

Because on the market, predictive shooting and reactive shooting was already out. First introduced on pstg, we did a podcast with Gaston From Argentina. He's a top level shooter as well.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

And he actually developed those terms predictive shooting and reactive shooting. But originally when I met confirmation drill, I didn't name them as that. I just confirmation 1, 2, 3, confirmation. But as I shoot more, I was like, hey, predictive shooting. Actually, confirmation one fits in predictive shooting and confirmation two in reactive shooting category. Now, what's a good name so I don't have to tell Confirmation 3, because when like normal people hear Confirmation 3, there's no information of that definition. Predictive shooting kind of have information, right? Predictive and reactive. And what's confirmation three? So, okay, corrective.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Because you're fought. You're firing a shot after making sure the red dot or your site was on the spot. If it wasn't on, you had to correct it and then break the shot. Confirmation 1 and 2, there's no time to correct anything.

[Brandon]

Yeah, well, I liked it. You did the drill today where we had the three targets and one of them was a no shoot with a little bit exposure of the brown to it. But then you would have different confirmation levels that we were shooting. So, hey, I want you to shoot the first one at confirmation one and then three in the middle and then one. I like that because to me, that was a. Yes, it was a, A drill that you were using to look at confirmation levels. But for me, using it as a tool to look at to what my job could entail, that related a lot to, hey, I'm. I'm having to shoot fast. Oh, damn. Now, this is a, like a hostage type shot where I need to have this shot, but I need to have it still fast, but not as fast as I just shot these two shots with a predictive style or shooting pace. So for me in law enforcement, I'm like, okay, I can take that look at it for what context it is, but also use it in the context of law enforcement as well. So I like the way you, you broke that third face down of that, because I haven't heard that before. So good job, man.

[Kim]

Thank you. Any terminology I make, I try to make it as definitive. So one thing I describe about trigger control, I had to clarify. Hey, any of you prep the trigger prepping technique? I literally said, what's prepping technique? When one student says stopping at the wall, the other student said, oh, prepping technique is like applying a little bit of pressure and rest of them later after a little bit of pressure. And I said, see, prepping technique doesn't have information about what it actually is. So When I ask this guy or that guy, their definition is all different.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

That's why I'm teaching gradual trigger pull. Because what does it mean, gradual trigger pull? Pull the trigger gradually.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

However, when you're shooting correctively and you have to stop every stop, trigger pull, and then you have to correct your sight because something's wrong. Then during that press from gradual 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 poundage stacking, you can stop anywhere and be safe. But if you're trying to stop at the wall, one of the problem is a lot of people go 0 to £4. If your trigger is £5, of course 0 to 4, then you have £1 left. So you can press last pound and so to say, have minimal effort on the trigger control. So accurate shot.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

However, I told people today, this morning was what, 32 degrees, 30 something degrees.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

And I told people, hey, in that cold weather, you don't have that sensation. You think you're going to go to zero to four pounds and stop right before the trigger click at five pounds. That's not going to happen. Feel is fake. They change.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Vision, focus, they don't. But also if you start from 0 to only 1 pound and stock, start building a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. If you have have to stop somewhere in the middle. Yeah. You can do it much safer.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Instead of getting negligence, you know, discharge, try to be definitive on all the terms.

[Brandon]

No, I think you did a good job today. I was, I'm impressed.

[Matt]

In three years, everybody will steal those terms, you know, it'll be all butchered and everybody come up with their own thing. So just be prepared for that, you know.

[Brandon]

Now what, what were some of the instructors that were that influenced your shooting and that you're like, man, I really took away from that. Or when you were learning to shoot, who were some of those instructors that you're like, man, these guys are really got it squared away.

[Kim]

Yes. So when I first started shooting, my goal immediately became, I want to be a champion. Our first one was grandmaster. And then as soon as I figured out there's national championship and things like that, I started saying, okay, I'm going to be a champion. So that is my start. But my strength or my blessing is not athleticism or at the time, I wasn't muscular much either. My blessing was study.

[Derek]

Okay.

[Kim]

I had ability to study. And that's what I did immediately. First, I did the number crunching. Like I said, I did engineering and physics background. When I did the number crunching, based on the hours of practice of other champions. For example, you know, Ben is one of them. Eric, Rafael, JJ Racaza, Max, Michelle, name it. They all started much younger age than I did. I was 26 when I started. Okay. And I was married man. Or I was getting married. And when I looked at the numbers, I can practice hours. I don't have enough mo count, I don't have enough money. So I decided I'm gonna out study everyone. So I started studying everybody is still to this day. I have few terabytes of data on my computer, either videos or Excel sheets of scores. I come, you know, punch in all the data. Of course I studied a lot of people, but I studied these three people the most. Eric Carfell, J. Jo Casa, Ben Steger. And I took classes on all three shooters. Fortunately Eric, J.J. i took once of each class. Ben I took three times. Okay, yes. And I studied all of them. The reason why is absolutely. Eric Garfield is known to be the best ipsic shooter. He's won the most title.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Kim]

J.J. is known to be the most athletic.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

And Ben is known to be very solid shooting fundamentals. But the dry fire guy.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

So when I kind of look at it, okay, Eric just shoots hundred thousand plus every year. So I can't be Eric. I don't have resources. But I still, I can study him. JJ doesn't shoot that many rounds, at least back then. But he works out every single day. So he knows how to work out, he knows what the body mechanics has to be. So I was studying his movement, things like that. And Ben doesn't shoot that many either, but he does dry fire. A lot of dry fire.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

So at the time I had no choice but to start working out and about to dry fire. So those three shooters are who I studied the most. And of course in my shooting they affected the most. Yeah, for sure.

[Brandon]

Well, they're pretty accomplished shooters there, so yeah, you know how to pick them. That says a lot about who you are as a person to be able to really break things down that way. Definitely. The more and more. I hear you. I know why they call you the professor for sure now. Yeah, you're. You're way smarter than us too sitting here. So.

[Kim]

But those three not only affected my shooting, they also affected how I instruct. Because all three people teach. The reason why I took Ben's class three times is because every time I took his class, I felt like there was something to learn. And I felt like he's not just giving a lecture.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

Meaning lecture is given same way to all the students in the class. But he's more of a coach directing individual student what they have to hear. He's giving customized feedback. So I felt like there was a value not only to develop my shooting, but also to learn his teaching style, so that really helped. And part of the things, you know, getting his class and also teaching together, too. He gives me feedback when. When we used to teach combo classes starting from 2018, he gave me things. Hey, Kim, I know you're smart, but you got to make it even simpler than what you're doing now. So that started becoming really my goal. Hey, during my teaching, make it as simple as possible. Only necessary information so that they can understand what they're doing.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Kim]

But again, my focus is get them through experience. Learn by experience, not learn by knowledge. Because I find it, no matter how much knowledge you have, it doesn't equate to practical performance. You can talk all you want, but you may never actually be able to do it or teach.

[Matt]

He just kept teaching cops and he goes, man, I got to done this thing. Like, you cannot talk. I'm sure that was probably what it was.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt]

We're simple people. Yeah.

[Brandon]

Don't go past five, because past five, it's hard. So. Yeah, I do cop math.

[Matt]

We like basic terminology. Yeah, that's what. That's why we're doing what we do.

[Brandon]

Yeah, for sure. For sure. So. Well, man, it's been a good time. I. I'm. I, I. I'm. I'm exhausted just from, you know, all the whole day and. And everything. So.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

About ready to wrap this one up. I know you've been teaching all day. You're ready to go as well right now?

[Kim]

Yeah, that's.

[Brandon]

That's not good. So you got anything else matter?

[Matt]

No. Enjoyed it. Pleasure meeting you. Thanks for everything, you know, helping out. And I said I look forward to you know, maybe getting, you know, get a chance to get into class with myself, you know, eventually. So, you know, thanks for, you know, taking the time to teach law enforcement, you know, and reaching out there, because, you know, we always need good people that are willing to, you know, add to our, you know, our craft. So thank you for that. Appreciate it.

[Kim]

Thank you. I really enjoy. Thanks for inviting me here. I'd love to come back.

[Brandon]

Yeah, well, I'll definitely invite you back.

[Matt]

Bring it back in the spring when it's warmer.

[Brandon]

Yeah, that way we can do something.

[Kim]

I mean, the 50s or 70s, not 30s.

[Matt]

Well, I mean, by late April, early May, it's already hot, dude.

[Brandon]

So, you know, I will not. I will not Invite you in August, that's too damn hot.

[Matt]

It'll kill you.

[Brandon]

Unless we go to Fort Worth and it's 70 something degrees. And they're. They're a deal. So if someone wants to train with you or contact you, watch Instagram, what's all that stuff for? What do you. What's your name and handle and all that jazz?

[Kim]

So hkimshooting.com is my official website.

[Derek]

Okay.

[Kim]

But you can go to Instagram, type hkimshooting. It's also going to pop up on Instagram. I'm pretty frequently responding to emails and messages on Instagram. If you want to find me on YouTube, just type my name, Juan Shik Kim. Or if you type Kim and recall management, you'll probably see it pop up. Okay, but 30 of Korean people are Kim, so you might find my Uncle Kim, things like that.

[Brandon]

Oh, damn. Hit the wrong button there. Oh, what the hell? Wow, 30%. That's amazing. That's. That's. That's crazy.

[Matt]

I'm Smith. I mean, I get.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll have two generic names, I guess. Hernandez, too. I guess that's pretty generic too. Yeah, for here. So, yeah, here we go. So, all right, then. Well, it's been a pleasure. And you know, guys, y'all better go train hard because if you're not, someone else is. And you hope that someone else that's training hard is not the bad guy that wants to come get you. So you better get out there and work hard, guys. All right, till next time, boys and girls. See you later.