Tactical Anatomy's Shooting With X-Ray Vision

I recently attended Dr James William’s Shooting With XRay Vision (SXRV) instructor’s course at Meade Hall Range in Oklahoma. I had desired to attend this class for some time and was pleased with the opportunity.

Dr Williams originally developed the SXRV curriculum to teach peace officers how to quickly end gunfights. With the proliferation of private citizens legally carrying firearms, the course is now open to them as well.

Of course, the only justification for shooting another human is the overwhelming need to immediately stop that person’s threat or use of unlawful deadly force. The SXRV goal is to teach students the location of vital zones where a bullet strike will likely lead to rapid incapacitation. The SXRV curriculum uses anatomic drawings, x-rays, and photographs to show these zones of incapacitation and the anatomy of vital structures within these zones.

The instructor then translates these two-dimensional drawings into a 3-D model by drawing the anatomy onto a live human assistant wearing a tight, white t-shirt. Demonstrating the relationship between a 2-D flat drawing and a 3-D model helps students understand the location of these vital structures – something that is difficult to do with 2-D targets.  This exercise helps the students visualize the locations of these vital structures from a 360-degree perspective.

The class then uses laser-enabled dummy guns such as the Next Level Training SIRT pistol to target and illuminate the locations of these vital structures on the model. Doc Williams makes corrections as necessary during this exercise. We finished the classroom portion with an exercise on an electronic simulator where the students were challenged to make anatomically correct hits during deadly force scenarios such as armed robberies, kidnappings, etc.

The class live fire exercise uses 3-D plastic targets also covered with tight, white t-shirts. Students place anatomically correct hits on the 3-D targets, while rotating the targets through 360 degrees between strings of fire. Once again, Doc made necessary corrections.

I have been using 2-D anatomical targets for several years in my classes and matches. Typically, I cover the targets with t-shirts so the shooter must decide where to shoot without having a typical reference aiming point. These work well for targets squarely facing or at a slight angle to the shooter; however, they do not work well for targets at more severe angles. The 3-D targets we used in the class are the Action Target 3-D targets. These targets are expensive and not ideal. They offer no means to easily score multiple hits beyond putting an intact t-shirt on the target; however, they appear to be the only 3-D targets available as of this writing.

I am a firm believer in Dr William’s Shooting With XRay Vision concept and plan to teach it as a stand-alone class and incorporate SXRV principles in my other classes where possible.