It took me a long, long time of deciding first to actually buy a handgun and then to choose a model. The entire year and a half was filled with behavioral self-assessment and training plans — this was one area where my professional skills have been put to good use!
In mid-October, I embarked upon a new learning experience — handling and shooting a firearm. I spent nearly a year and a half researching this prospect, deciding if it were a path I wanted to start down, and I’d decided firmly that if I were to have a gun, I would train to a high level of fluency and competency.
Imagine my delight, then, when among the usual trash advice dispensed to newbies in any sport or hobby, I encountered some truly fantastic, behaviorally-sound recommendations for learning to shoot and handle safely.
Okay, I was a bit slow to adopt TAGteach when I first encountered it in the early 2000s, but I’ve caught on, and I’ve been applying it more and more in my life. Sometimes I use TAGteach principles without the actual tagger (clicker), simply because that’s what I have to work with, but even without a key tool the principles still work. A marker can be many things, not just a clicker, and even with no marker (or instructor) at all, the concepts can be turned to Focus Points instead of TAGpoints and used the same way.
I’ve used clicker-less TAGteach backstage at a major performance event and with kids on the verge of losing it. And last weekend I had a reminder of how very useful TAGteach can be for myself.