Most men think they need more range time. What most men actually need is more living-room time with an empty pistol.
Live fire is expensive. Range time is finite. And the truth is, most of what makes a competent shooter has nothing to do with whether or not a round leaves the muzzle. It has to do with what your hands and your eyes are doing before the round leaves.
That is what dry fire is for. And dry fire is free.
Here is the drill. Triple-check that your pistol is unloaded. Remove the magazine. Rack the slide twice. Visually and physically inspect the chamber. Put all ammunition in a different room. Then check it one more time.
Now set a target on the wall ten feet away. Anything will work. A penny taped to a piece of paper. A light switch. A doorknob.
From the holster, draw to the target. Get your grip right on the draw. Find the sights as the pistol comes up. Press the trigger. Reset. Press again. Repeat for ten minutes.
That is the drill. Ten minutes a night.
You are training the draw stroke. You are training trigger control. You are training the sight picture you actually get under stress, which is uglier than the one you get when you are casually shooting paper. You are wiring all of this into the part of your brain that runs without your permission, which is the only part that will be running if the day ever comes when you actually need it.
The men who shoot well at Fireside are not the ones who go to the range every week. They are the ones who dry fire in their living room every night. Ten minutes. No ammo. No noise. No cost. Just reps.
Start tonight. Tell me at the next event how many days in a row you have hit ten minutes. We will keep track.