What do you do when you practice?

Do you practice the good stuff? The easy stuff?

You may be wiser and realize the best thing to practice is the stuff you suck at; to address your weaknesses because that’s the only way to convert them into strengths.

But how much time do you put into the unconventional?

This hit me the other day.

I’ve been fairly regular with my dry fire practice, but my dry practice has been “conventional”. I practice Wall Drills. I practice the press-out. I practice drawing from my concealment holster. I practice reloads and malfunctions. I practice two-hands, strong-hand-only (SHO), and weak-hand-only (WHO). I do all the conventional stuff, especially what I suck at (WHO).

But then the other day I realized I haven’t been practicing the unconventional. I realized this because I found myself in an unconventional situation (nothing bad, but just enough of a situation to make light the bulb above my head).

For example, my concealment draw typically involves my left hand reaching around to my right side, yanking up my shirt, then my right hand goes to draw.

But what if I don’t have my left hand?

What if I have to use only my right hand to make everything go?

Or… what if I only have my left hand to make everything go?

Unconventional.

Now, this isn’t to say we need to make addressing the unconventional a staple of our practice. However, it’s worthwhile to consider and work on these things every so often, at least so that the first time you have to do it isn’t when you need it.