Mantis Class Highlights: AGAG National Conference

A few weeks ago, I spent some time out with the A Girl & A Gun Ladies. Their National conference was held at The Cameo Shooting Complex in Grand Junction, Colorado. Which is an amazing range, so if you ever have the chance to make it out there, you should make the time! 

We started off the week with a great day of product demos! Mantis was located in their “tent city” with other vendors like Active Self Protection and  Zendira. I had a great time showing the women how Mantis can help them with their training at home. However, the real fun started the following day during the classes! 

I taught the Mantis X Shooting Performance System Class. Each class had 12 women in attendance. I’ve found that some people say they bought the X10 but never take it out of the box. So with this class, we all worked through the settings and mounting options. The goal of this class was to make sure they could take their X2, X3, or X10 back home and train to accomplish their own goals. To compare models you can reference this page! 

Mantis Benchmark Drill

After we got everyone set up with an X10 on their firearms, we started with the MantisX Benchmark Drill. This drill is set up to see where you are starting your training journey. I had all of the ladies take ten dry-fire shots to give them an idea of where their skill level started. Once they took their shots, we were able to look at the trace screens and explain the movement tracked by the X10. 

The blue is the hold/aiming movement. The yellow is the trigger press. The white x is where the shot broke/banged. The red is the after-shot movement. 

One piece of information that the women liked to know is that the direction you pull the shot will directly correlate with the direction the wedges pull on the main scoring screen. 

If you click into your red markers, you will see what you can do to improve your accuracy. The first paragraph explains how you did it wrong and the second explains how to correct that action.

If you understand all of the screens on the MantisX Benchmark drill, you will be able to navigate through most of the other drills with ease. It is important that you start with this drill, so that as you navigate your history over time, you can see your improvement. We did this drill twice so that they could analyze their first set of shots and learn from them before starting the second round. Almost everyone improved by about 10% in the first 20 shots. 

Compressed Surprise Break Drill

We then moved them to the Compressed Surprise Break drill. The Compressed Surprise Break drill has a buzzer integrated into it. So after every shot the drill resets the buzzer, so you can reset your position. The goal is to fire one shot as quickly as possible. I had some of them try three different levels of the drill. (The levels are not individual drills in the app, but an adjustment to the drill settings that allows the user to configure the drill setup.)

Level One: On Target

Level Two: Low Ready

Level Three: Holstered

Level Four: Laying in bed with your firearm stored on the nightstand or whatever your preference is for night storage. (Level four can be anything you would like it to be. Make sure you set your buzzer time to allow you to take the time you need to reset your position.) 

Another reason we went through the Benchmark drill first, was so that we could compare their scores in a drill where they took their time, and then look at the drill that adds in the timing element. Some of them were shocked at how low their scores dropped the first time they did the drill. Adding in time as a stressor can change up your training and expose different areas to work on. The great thing about Mantis is that you are competing against yourself and your abilities. By the time they were done with this section, they had taken about 50 shots.

Shoot/ No Shoot Drill

The next drill we looked at was Shoot/ No Shoot. (A few weeks after the class was held we added in new drills. Shoot/ No Shoot is now under Decision Drills.)

Level One: On Target

Level Two: Low Ready

Level Three: Holstered

Level Four: Have your phone set up in your peripheral. Place your target on a different wall. Use the visual confirmation of the phone screen to decide it’s time to shoot your target. You will shoot when the screen is green.

The Shoot/ No Shoot drill can help with your situational awareness and ability to confirm your target. It is easy to get in the habit of shooting every time you hear the buzzer. This drill will make you verify that you need to take a shot before you proceed. The shot count after this drill varied from 80 to 100 depending on if they wanted to repeat one of the levels. 

The app will mark the shots you missed with a red X and the white check marks are the shots you performed correctly. 

Holster Draw Analysis

The last section of the app that we went over was the holster draw analysis. This drill's layout is different from the previous drills. After you complete your first holster draw, the screen breaks down your draw stroke into five segments of time. In the bars, it will show you how long it takes to grip your gun, pull it out of the holster, get the gun horizontal, punch out to the target, and press the shot off. So for the first time you are able to see the data behind how long it takes for each individual section of your draw stroke. 

Green- Time to Grip

Blue- Pull from Holster

Teal- Gun to Horizontal

Brown- Punch to Target

Orange- Press the shot Off

The goal is to work on your draw so that it is consistent and straight from the holster to the target. From the strong side, the trace will be more in line with the vertical line. For the ladies that were carrying appendix, their trace went out at an angle about halfway between the horizontal and vertical lines. To learn more about our holster draw analysis, click here. 

Once you move into off-body carry the line gets a little funky. The line will look as if it has a partial moon on the screen before turning into a trace that looks similar to the appendix draw. The example below was a Holster Draw with the Zendira Friday Crossbody.

The holster draw is only available on the Mantis X10. If you have the X2 or X3 we do have a trade-in program. Click here, for the trade-in program details. 

It is always important to practice with your own equipment and the Mantis X10 provides you with that ability. Running through these drills is a great way to learn how the Mantis X10 can be used to help in your training. Remember that you can use these drills in both dry and live-fire!