The American Shooter curriculum is designed around a four-course sequence which traces the natural path of development your shooting skills would have followed if you had grown up shooting as a child and into your adulthood.  The curriculum is broken down not by type of weapon but by the kind of shooting you learn at each turn:  First you learn Static Shooting in the Traditional setting of a youth with a .22 or similar “first rifle.”  Then you learn Dynamic Shooting in the Traditional setting as you receive your “first shotgun” and learn to hunt birds on the wing or shoot clay pigeons in flight.  Finally, as a young adult, you learn to defend your home and family by translating your dynamic and static skills to the Defensive/Combat realm, and you discover that the static shooting you practiced with your first rifle, and the dynamic wing shooting you practiced with your first shotgun, were all teaching you the fundamentals of combat shooting without you even realizing it.  In the Defensive shooting courses, then, you learn to apply the fundamentals you already know to your defense while adding the small skills specific to defensive shooting, such as rapid reloads, moving and shooting, and shooting from cover.

The basic syllabus is broken into four Lessons:

1. Marksmanship (Traditional Static Shooting with your “first rifle”)
2. Wing Shooting (Traditional Dynamic Shooting with your “first shotgun”)
3. Defensive Shooting Basics (how to translate your Dynamic and Static shooting experience into self-defense with both a pistol and a long gun)
4. Defensive Shooting Additional Skills (the additional specific skills you need in order to be a comprehensive defensive shooter)

Can you skip ahead?  Yes.  The basic sequence described above is the ideal.  Going through that complete process allows you to develop your skills and comfort with firearms naturally, just as you would have done growing up, with each skill building upon the last.  However, in the real world, limited resources of time and money may require that you push ahead to your final goal in the most efficient way possible.  For this reason, American Shooter offers two additional courses:

• Growing Up with a Shotgun (Traditional Dynamic Shooting with your “first shotgun,” plus the Fundamentals of Safe Gun Ownership and Handling):  This course skips Lesson 1 and enhances Lesson 2 with the Fundamentals of Safe Gun Ownership and Handling, as if the first gun you received as a child was your shotgun and you grew up wing-shooting.  If you take this course, AS strongly encourages you to go back and take Traditional Static Shooting when you can.

• Direct to Defensive Shooting (Dynamic Shooting in a Defensive/Combat context):  This course skips Lesson 1 and Lesson 2, and enhances Lesson 3 with the Fundamentals of Safe Gun Ownership and Handling, with the intent to give you enough foundation in gun ownership and handling that you can safely and confidently practice the basic skills of firearm self-defense with your defensive firearm of choice.  If you take this course, AS strongly encourages you to go back and take Traditional Static Shooting and Traditional Dynamic Shooting when you can, and to take Lesson 4 when you can, as well.

AS encourages you, before during and after the American Shooter curriculum, to take other courses, such as Personal Protection Strategies or classes from the NRA curriculum, to continue your education in firearms, shooting sports, and personal protection.