Wasted ammunition

[t0l]

”Yeah, well, they all kinda blend together after a while, but I gotta deal with it since they’re the ones bankrolling us. I dunno much about the Captain, though. She’s new around here.”

Tal watched her as she brought the weapon up, taking a step back and leaning to his right to get a better overall view of her posture and form. It didn’t come as much of a surprise to him that she carried herself the way she did, for it was fairly typical of newer shooters, and he knew exactly how to correct it. Good thing he decided to try and catch it now, so that he could get her to start developing muscle memory for a solid, balanced stance.

“Alright, so, you remember that stuff I said about guns being foreign objects to us humans? This is what I mean. You pick one up, and you assume this stance is optimal because it’s comfortable, and you think you’re balanced, but let’s talk about biomechanics. When you’re standing upright like that,” he paused, stepping over and putting a splayed out hand over the muzzle of the empty weapon, “I can push you right off your center of gravity, just like this.” He applied a firm, constant pressure to the weapon with his palm, pushing her backwards with relative ease.

“What you want to be doing instead is something like this.” For demonstrative purposes, he entered his ideal shooting position: left foot forward, bent at the knee, right foot backwards, totally straight, roughly shoulder width apart. The rifle smoothly swung up in his hands, his upper back arching forwards as he pulled the wide-cheeked buttstock into his shoulder pocket, his offhand wrapped firmly around the thin free-floated handguard, thumb-over-bore. “Leaning forwards into your weapon, but not driving the weapon forwards, good skeletal balance, positive weapon control, both eyes open looking through the sights. Remember, when it comes to maintaining a strong standing position, you want straight lines going along the body. Straight lines are strong, angles are not. So, try that again. Lean into your weapon, and make sure your footwork is like mine right here.”

Tal dropped his weapon to low-ready, keeping his feet planted in the same positions for reference as he turned to look at her. When she adjusted herself properly, he reached over and put a hand back over the muzzle, trying to push her back with the same firm, constant application of force to no avail. “You see what I mean? I can sit here and pound on this thing all day and you won’t move. Now, let’s see what happens when you lean too far into it, because that’s also bad. Here, bend over a little more.”

He put a hand on her back and ushered her forwards, into an even lower, hunched-forwards version of his example stance. “Now you’re bent over too far. When I push on you again, like this, I can just throw you around like it’s no big deal. So, remember. Straight lines are strong, angles aren’t.”

She seemed to be picking up on it quick enough, at least in theory. Practical application would come later, and a good understanding of the theories behind the science would build a healthy foundation for when they got to the meat of the training. “Next, let’s talk about target transitions, or if you need to move off-center for whatever reason. Lotta guys like to do this number.” He resumed a firing stance with his own rifle, turning his entire body a few degrees to the left, then back to the right, stepping both feet toward that direction so that his beltline faced the imaginary enemies.

“You don’t really have to do this. It takes a lot of time when you may not necessarily have it. Instead, you can just do something like this.” The same motions, first to the left, then to the right, except his time his feet remained firmly planted as he maneuvered his hips down and around to face them wherever he swung his weapon. “I can do this a lot faster and still remain just as stable. You want your beltline to be pointing at the target as you transition or turn to face them or whatever—basically, whatever you point your dick at dies. Make sure you don’t snap your weapon around, either. Smooth transitions work best; slow is smooth, smooth is fast. You got all of that?”

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