Level Up Your Shooting: A Guide to MantisX Courses
You just received your MantisX, TitanX or BlackbeardX and are not sure where to start? Want to be guided to get better in your dry fire? Maybe you’ve run out of fresh ideas for training? Mantis provides courses within the MantisX Pistol/Rifle app for you and answers all of these questions. Let’s dig into what courses are and how they are a fun addition to your dry fire routine.
What are courses and how do they work?
Courses are a sequence of ten challenges, each challenge is typically a drill that has specific requirements to complete to “pass” the challenge and move on to the next challenge. Each course has a unique theme or goal. The challenges and their passing requirements are tailored to help you progressively improve your skills for that particular goal.
The active course and current challenge will be shown at the top of the TRAIN tab within the app. This area will also spell out the requirements needing to be met with the current challenge to be able to progress on in the course. We also help out by highlighting the drill for the current challenge in red.
There is no time limit on completing a course once you start one, and you have the ability to work on multiple courses. When activating a course that has previously been started, just make sure you choose “RESUME” when the app prompts you when going back into the course.
One of the coolest things about completing each course is that Mantis will send you a really nice patch that matches the picture to the right of the course (with the exception of the MantisX Introduction Course). These patches are free and mailed out to US residents for free. If you reside outside of the US, you can still get the free patch, just reach out to our support team to pay for having patches shipped to you, which you can complete multiple courses and bundle them in one mailing.
Types of Courses
In the MantisX Pistol/Rifle app, there are multiple groupings of courses depending upon what type of firearm you are using. There are courses specific to using a pistol (including a TitanX), a rifle and a BlackbeardX. There are also a few standalone courses that have unique features to them. Stay tuned for more courses to come!
Pistol Courses
There are three specific groupings of courses that are specific to using a pistol equipped with one of our X sensors or a TitanX within the app. Marksmanship courses focus on trigger control and shot scores, both two handed and one handed shooting helping you improve your marksmanship skills. Completing the Basic Marksmanship course will unlock the Advanced Marksmanship course, and finally completing the Advanced Marksmanship course, unlocks the Elite Marksmanship course.
Next up are the Combat courses, which build in more complexity and pressure to your dry fire practice like executing reloads, drawing from the holster and decision making skills. Just like the Marksmanship courses, they follow the same progression from Basic to Advanced to Elite levels. The Advanced and Elite Combat courses are only available for users with a X10 Elite sensor or a TitanX because they utilize the Holster Draw Analysis drill. That drill is not available for the X2 or X3 sensors.We took advice from some respected national level experts when building these courses and defining the criteria to pass the challenges, focusing on the draw to first shot speed and accuracy. The Basic and Advanced courses each have a minimum of 210 draws and the Elite course has a minimum of 250 draws to complete. Practicing this number of draws with the set requirements will result in refinement of your draw and increased draw to first shot times.
Rifle Courses
The Rifleman courses are also structured in the Basic/Advanced/Elite levels. They focus on rifle marksmanship skills focusing on stability of the hold or aim movement and a quick trigger press. The Rifleman courses are available to anyone with a MantisX sensor mounted on a rifle with a Blackbeard or installing a BlackbeardX into your rifle. Without a Blackbeard or BlackbeardX you will need to charge the handle each time to reset the trigger on your rifle. If you are not seeing the Rifleman courses with a MantisX sensor turned on, check your settings to ensure your firearm is set to “Rifle”. When connecting a BlackbeardX, the system automatically selects the rifle option.
BlackbeardX Courses
The BlackbeardX courses focus on the economy of motion you have with your rifle through the Dynamic Drills offered in the MantisX Pistol/Rifle app when installing and connecting a BlackbeardX to your rifle. These courses will level up your rifle skills by shooting from different ready positions and using Transition drills that require engaging multiple targets and firing multiple shots. These courses build your skills from static one target engagements.
Standalone Courses
There are also standalone courses that exist to accomplish different purposes than the regular courses do. They range from special shooting courses to informational courses and even a silly one.
MantisX Introduction Course
The one course we recommend everyone take, especially if you are new to the MantisX Pistol/Rifle app, is the MantisX Introduction course. This course will walk you through the basics of navigating and executing drills within the MantisX Pistol/Rifle app. This course will familiarize you with the app and get you up and running to train with a Mantis device. This is the only course that does not have a patch associated with it.
Double Action Diligence Course
The Double Action Diligence course is specific to double action revolvers or semi-automatics. It requires you to run in double action mode and will prompt whether you are using a semi-auto or revolver so it customizes the challenges to what you are using. It focuses on the trigger control needed when working with a double action trigger and reloads with both firearm types. No picatinny rain on your revolver? You can find bore adapters in our store.
Gecko45 Course
The Gecko45 course is super fun and is not to be taken seriously. The lore behind the name and course is described in this article. This course is going to make you do things incorrectly, which teaches you how that feels and can help you to identify when those things happen. Knowing what not to do and recognizing it can be valuable to diagnosing what went wrong when you are actually trying! This course is only available from April 1st to April 7th (coinciding with April Fools) or if you have completed all other pistol courses available, then this course will appear. Give it a try and have fun with it!
MantisX Mastermind Course
The MantisX Mastermind course is a course that coincides with the MantisX Mastermind program, which is a great way to dig in deep and learn about all of the settings and features within the MantisX Pistol/Rifle app. The in-app course acts as a “final exam” that becomes available for students of the Mastermind course who have completed the required e-learning videos and the patch is part of the diploma a student receives when they complete this course.
Get after it!
Doing courses is a great way to stay engaged and gamify your dry fire practice. They provide motivation for many people to put in the time and work hard through the courses to earn the patches. As the courses get progressively harder, not everyone will be able to easily pass them. It may require working outside of the course on specific skills to refine them before jumping back into the course challenge. Most importantly through the courses, the further you progress, the more skills you have built and refined, which ultimately is the goal at Mantis - to help you improve as a shooter!
Cara Conry
Author