 in Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and today I want to talk about why practice speed reloads. I've done some reading a little bit recently and taken some classes and done some thinking and obviously the goal is at the end of the day, tactically, to never have to actually do a speed reload, right? To be on your game enough that you're able to attack reload when you can and top your gun off when you can to not run out of bullets, right? In an actual gunfight, you obviously never want to go to slide lock. Additionally, as a civilian, your chances of going to slide lock, running your gun dry in a self-defense encounter are infinitesimally small. They are incredibly, incredibly low, right? It just does not happen that often that civilians in defending their own life run their gun dry to go to slide lock. It does happen from time to time, but it is rare. It is super rare. So why should we practice speed reloads? One of the arguments I've heard is that you have to reload your gun anyway during shooting, so you might as well practice it the right way. And I think that's true. Yeah, you might as well, right? Why not? It's a wasted opportunity otherwise. But I spend a lot of time practicing my reloads. And I'm sure some of you out there do as well. And I think we should. I think it's a good thing to be very well versed with reloading your gun in a hurry. But why, right? If we're all just submitted, it's not that often that it happens. And tactically, we don't ever want to get there. Why do we do it? And I would argue the biggest reason for practicing speed reloads is not necessarily because it actually might happen to you, but because I it is a competence and confidence builder with your handgun. I have never met anybody. I have never seen anybody who is really good at their speed reloads, who sucks at everything else and shooting, right? I just haven't met that guy. Can't hit a dang thing. But boom, they got that reload. I've just never met that person. I've never seen that person shoot. It just hasn't happened, right? The people who are really good at their speed reloads are really good at the other stuff of shooting. Now, does that magically mean that, oh, if I just practice my speed reloads, I'm magically better at the rest of shooting? No, absolutely not. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that when you put those people that tend to put that kind of dedication to their speed reloads, also put that kind of dedication into the rest of their shooting, right? It's a marker of someone who really takes running their gun seriously, right? Someone who knows how to reload their pistol smoothly, quickly, efficiently is going to be pretty competent at the rest of shooting because they put that same kind of dedication to the rest of the shooting. So we practice speed reloads because it is going to make you supremely confident and hopefully translate over to competent with your gun, right? When you know how to really run that gun and work that speed reload, right, and you're just slamming it in there and going, you, that is going to give you a certain amount of confidence with your guns. And especially new shooters, I found that often there are two types of people coming to shooting and they're new, right? They're people whose confidence is through the roof. I put them up the three-yard line and say, okay, we're gonna start shooting. They're like, come on, like this is super close, and then they can't hit a thing, right? Or there's people who can hit it, but they're still really nervous about the gun, it's going bang and all this other stuff. And when we start to work both of those people and get them really good on those speed reloads, their overall actual, real confidence of actual skill level rises. And that's what I want. That's what I want for people is I want them to be confident with their gun. I want them to feel like they know their way around their gun. I feel like they're ready to be their gun's master and not its bitch. And I don't know anything that accomplishes that more effectively than practicing speed reloads and being really good at speed reloads. Additionally, it just gives you the confidence that, look, if your tactics weren't that good or you just caught in a bad situation or whatever and you had to run your gun dry, you're not gonna panic because your gun is just gonna run dry. You're gonna see it, it's not like, boom, you're gonna reload it and you're gonna be back in the fight, right? That's what we want. I want that supreme, not an inflated confidence, but a genuine, real confidence in our gun. So I would argue, look, if you don't practice your speed reloads, if you're not very good at your speed reloads, if you don't spend time dry firing on your speed reloads, then I think you should do that, right? We should all practice our speed reloads more until they are just butter smooth. That is the goal, have them just butter smooth. And when you reach that point, when you feel like, man, it's just way smoother than it used to be for me, your confidence with your handgun is going to increase. You're gonna feel like you really know your way around your handgun, that you're really ready to manipulate and move that handgun in a manner that is marked by professionalism and is marked by a martial attitude. So practice your speed reloads. That's why we practice them, that's why I teach them, that's why I really want people to be good at them because I want them to be confident and competent with their handgun. And like I said, I've just never met the guy or girl who's good at speed reloads, but sucks at the rest of shooting. Do brave deeds and endure.