By Elisabet, Jokokan Ballerup, 1st dan sr Yakami Shinsei-ryu Karate-do, 3rd dan Bujutsu Kodosokukai Gensei-ryu Karate-do, June 2012

It amazes me again and again that all courses in Shindenkan, are so well designed and complete. The phrase “nothing is left to chance” are more reliable every time. I always think that I will be surprised, because one’s own expectation are skipped and replaced with an improved overall impression and understanding.

My expectations for the POMW course was zero – I had absolutely no experience in the subject – in the handling of either firearms or firearms in general. However, the day before the course, I had seen an action movie with an original action: The hard gang environment mixed with agents and police people where guns and other weapons were involved.
I very quickly got the perception that the way they handled the weapon, which you always see they do on movies, were the correct way to do it – but as usual, I was wrong.

Is it the gun or the person behind it that kills?
Mindset. A very important words and concepts that we were confronted with throughout the process. Can you kill if you are in a situation where your life or the life of others depends on it? It was initially difficult to relate to, but gradually it dawned that it IS everyday life today – if you would acknowledge it or not. Therefore, I was very grateful to get the opportunity to learn and know how to handle weapons of today.

When we started to put theory into practice, I could not hit a door in a barn. I was more than grateful just to be able to hit the target. We tried to shoot from different distances, and there we again were brought face to face with our mindset. Just with a 2 meter difference – and suddenly you could not hit anything. Again, you had to work with your mindset.

The difficulty was in fact not how to learn to shoot, it was actually very simple – it was difficult to observe the small things that made it possible to shoot and hit the target. One could quickly forget it or skip a few steps, because you wanted to have great success, which made the focus more on the target than on the process itself. We then were given the task of practicing these techniques we had learned for the next course. Which have to be done for each day in the next three weeks.

When we met up for the next course, NEVER in my wildest fantasies have I dared to believe or hope to, that my techniques would improve so much from the last course to this course. It was a huge difference. I suddenly went from being content with hitting the target, to be unhappy not to hit the bull’s eye in the black area every time. I was very surprised and happy. I had not thought I would ever get so god to shoot – and then in just three weeks. The difference was huge. Again, it is all about the mindset. With the proper handling, technique and attitude you can go far!