Using Video To Be Your Own Coach

Are you putting in the work, whether it’s dry practice or live fire, but still not progressing, or hit a plateau?  It might signal that something physical needs to be identified in your shooting fundamentals.  Let’s talk about how observing what you are doing with your own eyes can help overcome a plateau or even help you progress in your shooting journey faster.

Why Video?

Why video myself?  Well, that answer is easy.  We really do not have the ability to observe our shooting any other way.  Yes, you can stand in front of a mirror, but to get the right angles, and to observe fine detail in live action is darn near impossible without having a tool to capture what you are doing.  

Having a skilled firearms instructor evaluate you while you shoot is an ideal solution, and I would highly recommend supplementing your training from time to time with an instructor.  Ultimately there is a cost to private instruction - both time and money.  Another barrier to private instruction might be availability of a diagnostic coach.  Not every instructor is a skilled diagnostic coach.  This will require you to do some research.  Do they have any training or recency in training that is relevant to coaching diagnostics?

There’s also options for remote coaching.  Many nationally and some regional/local instructors or coaches offer virtual coaching using Zoom or other web call methods and these sessions, from personal experience, are highly effective, but costly.  Again, do your research before committing and paying!

Wait, if you own a MantisX unit, TitanX or BlackbeardX, why might you need an instructor when Mantis is supposed to diagnose what I’m doing based on muzzle movement?  Don’t get us wrong, the data Mantis provides is invaluable in understanding what exactly is happening to the muzzle of the firearm at the moment the triggered is pressed, but the corrections given in the Segment Chart screen are typical errors specific to grip and trigger control and do not account for other factors like what your head, feet or hips are doing.

These general corrections given in the Pistol/Rifle app cannot account for unique physical differences that we have.  In general, bullets impacting low left for a right handed shooter are a result of “Slapping the Trigger” or “Tightening Fingers”, but if you have arthritis in your hand or wrist that locks your hand up during the trigger press, that might not truly fit the given suggestions.  

This is where having another set of eyes is helpful.  So why not your own eyes?  In 2026 nearly everyone has the tools needed to coach themselves.

How to Capture Video for Self-Coaching?

If you have a smartphone, chances are it has the capability to capture video.  A basic tripod with a phone mount is extremely helpful, but not required.  You can get creative in using a table and books or other common household items to prop your phone up.  You could also recruit a family member or a friend and work together to video each other (safely) during dry fire, or even do video during live fire if the range would allow that.  Be sure of your range’s rules, some ranges do not allow cell phone use on the range.

When capturing video, using a slow motion mode or “slo-mo” mode is going to give you the best results and allow you to really analyze what is going on physically during your dry fire practice.  Here’s how to do that on Android and Apple devices.

If you don’t have a slow motion option, or you want to view your video on a larger device like a laptop or desktop computer, you can upload your video to YouTube and during replay you can slow down the video to .5 or even .25 speed.

What Should I Be Filming?

There’s multiple views that you might want to consider when filming yourself on video.  It really depends on what you are working on solving.  If you are working on trying to understand movement that you see in the Segment Chart screen within the Mantis Pistol/Rifle app, then you most likely will need to film your hands, wrists, and forearms up close.  Most issues can be identified in that area.  I’d also recommend that the forearms be bare (no long sleeve shirts) as you want to be able to see movement.

Start with a view from the support hand and thumb side of the pistol.  This helps see what is happening with the trigger finger, show the location of the contact with the trigger, and how the trigger is being pressed.  It’s also important to include the barrel and front sight so that you have a reference point to any movement.  It is also helpful to film this same view from the strong side as well, to see if you can see tension in the dominant hand, wrist or arm while pressing the trigger.

Another view that you may not think of would be filming from behind to see if there is any shoulder or head movement during the firing sequence, especially if your shots are high or low, but not left or right.

If you are filming in live fire, you might also consider filming your entire posture or stance from both the strong and support sides as recoil has a way of showing motion throughout the entire body, even down to the feet.  This is not to say that you shouldn’t use this view in dry practice, but without recoil, generally the body as a whole does not move like it might in live fire.

If you are wanting to coach yourself on drawing from the holster, then you will want your entire body as a whole on camera, but you will want to do that from each side, left and right, back and especially a front view.  The front view filming should not be done by a friend or family member unless you are using a completely inert training tool like the TitanX, and even then, ensure you do not point the laser into their eyes.  Safety rules must always apply when using an actual firearm!

Also with any filming, consider a journal to write down what you felt and what happened to your sights when you pressed the trigger, or what you felt and saw with your sights during your presentation from the holster so you can reference when you review the video.  If you are using a MantisX product with the Pistol/Rifle app, make notes on your session.

What Should I Look For?

So the video is the easy part, now the hard work begins.  You must take the time to review the video.  Reviewing is best done right after you record it so that what you did during the practice session is still fresh in your mind (or make sure you have really good notes).  If the session was single shots, did the shots go where you were aiming (live fire) or what did the sights tell you during the trigger press (dry practice)?  If your shots are not impacting the point of aim, that’s where you can start.  

One item to consider - if you use a red dot or pistol mounted optic, did you account for offset of your optic?  This would show up in live fire on a target and would also be noticed with the laser impact point if you are using a laser training pistol with an optic or your personal firearm with a laser training cartridge.  Make sure to account for that situation when analyzing point of aim vs point of impact.

When replaying a video, find where the shot’s muzzle blast is captured and work backwards.  Find a reference point in the background which you can view the movement of the front sight and watch in slow motion the movement of the front sight immediately before the muzzle blast.  Even better is to put onto a computer and use a free video program that will allow you to move the slider back and forth even frame by frame to see changes.  This is how the video is shown in the example below.

Almost all movement that makes the shot “miss” is done so through flexing or relaxing of muscles. Looking at the fingers, hands, wrists and forearms are a great starting point.  Once you have identified a shot with movement in the front sight immediately preceding the muzzle flash, then look for flexing or relaxing of fingers, tendons in the hands, flexing of the wrists, and any tension or flexing in the forearms.  

If you see movement of the front sight in the video, try to identify where that movement originates from.  Then you should ask yourself why?  There might be a valid physical reason that you must make that movement like arthritis or a joint replacement.  Assess if the reason is a physical need, or if the movement is unnecessary.  Look at additional shots and see if the movement you identify is consistent across the shots.  

If you didn’t see movement, you might need to look at shots from a different perspective or angle.  Movement of the gun can be introduced from the neck, shoulders and back, so a perspective from behind or in front (following all rules of safety) might be needed to identify these movements.  Also look to see if there is unnecessary movement by the head.  If we move the head as the shot breaks, most likely we are moving the firearm.  Our body tends to move where our head goes.

The holster draw adds a level of complexity as the movement is not just during the shot.  You can improve your draw time and your consistency by knowing if you have unnecessary movement during the draw.  Less motion generally equals a more quiet or surreptitious draw, and less movement also generally means finding your dot or sights reliably and consistently.

If you have a X10 Elite or a TitanX, look at the Trace View screen for the Holster Draw Analysis drill and see if there is consistency across the traces.  The closer the traces are to each other, the more consistent you are.

If you are struggling to find your sights or your dot, it might be due to multiple parts of the body moving at the same time.  For example, the hands are moving to present the gun, but you might have movement in the shoulders or the head, and with two planes of movement, it makes finding the sights reliably extremely difficult.  Review your video to see if you might have multiple pieces of movement during the draw, then work to keep your head in the position you want it to be in for the shot when you start your draw.

Still Stuck or Need Guidance?

The key to coaching yourself is being curious and seeing what is happening and understanding why it is happening.  Then your job is to resolve it, if it is unnecessary.  Now we’ve hit the hard part, addressing a movement that has been built into our process.  Only you can work through that, but an instructor or coach might be able to help.  Dry practice is the best way to work through any changes you are making in your fundamentals, and again, validate with video.

There are multiple diagnostic coaches who travel nationally (and also do online consultations) and teach diagnostics.  Two of them I’ve personally trained with are Christopher Bean with Tactical Advantage and Brian Hill with The Complete Combatant.

Self-coaching is not easy, but we all have to start somewhere.  Two key points to take away.  First is being aware of what your firearm is telling you through the sights.  The second is understanding what you are feeling during the process to map it to the video.  Without those two things, then the video is just that, a replay.  But matching it with these two key points, being curious and asking questions of yourself (and if you have Mantis data available), becomes a true path to mastery with your firearm.