‘Tis the season for making commitments to do things better than we did last year.

How much did you dry fire? Probably not as much as you should have. I know I didn’t do it as much as I should have.

We all prefer to do live fire, but live fire only takes you so far. Plus, live fire is costly in both time, resources (e.g. ammo), and money (range costs, gas to get there). Dry fire costs you little more than a few minutes of your time. And yes, it really doesn’t have to take long. The key is to not dry fire for lengthy sessions but for frequent sessions. It’s better to dry fire 10 minutes every day than it is to dry fire for 1 hour once a week. Your skills will be fresher in your mind and body.

The trouble can be, what to practice? Or, how to keep practice interesting.

ToddG has a nice dry practice routine, from both a basic routine to something more comprehensive over the course of a month.

Rangemaster has some fun dry fire targets running in Flash that can add a little variety.

Rangemaster’s October 2009 newsletter (on page 3) also has a good dry routine more oriented towards defensive pistol skills. I have that printed out and is one of the routines I frequently run.

Software solutions, such as the DR Performance Practice Deck for iOS (which I wrote) can be another useful tool for helping you with ideas about what to practice today.

The key factor is to look at what you need work on and focus on it. Don’t just practice what you like, practice what you need to improve on. And by keeping the sessions short but frequent, it can help stave off boredom.

Don’t forget to practice other things too. Do you sometimes have to carry in an alternative method? Has the weather changed and now with more or less clothing on affected how you have to draw? Do you use different guns at different times? do you have a backup gun? Don’t forget these things.

I’m not sure how successful I’ll be, but I’d like to dry practice 6-7 days a week (I’ll allow myself 1 day off because I’ll either want the break or may just miss due to life circumstances). I’d want the majority of that practice to be with my carry gun. But at least 1-2 days should be sure to practice other things. For instance, with my snub and transitioning to it from my primary; with the home defense shotgun; with the home defense AR. Keep it short, keep it sweet and to the point. But just be sure to do it.