Shortly after buying Shooters Paradise in Woodbridge, VA, I had the urge to put together a competition shooting team. It started out as simply a way to give myself a small tax write off, but I figured I might as well help out a few friends along the way. I still remember having a conversation with one of my best friends, Ron Francisco, nearly 10 years ago. “You need to sponsor Mike Seeklander,” he said. “Mike who?” I responded.
Actually, I had met Mike a couple years earlier at the USPSA Limited Nationals but didn’t really remember. Maybe it was because I was too wrapped up in my own rise to the top. Maybe it was because I was too distracted by all of the world-class shooters I was in the mix with...the same people I had read about and idolized for several years. When I stop and think about Mike and his personality, I know now that it was probably because he was unassuming and modest. Just a quiet guy who is now a top-level competitor and instructor, but you would never know it unless you pried it out of him yourself.
I’ll never forget our first trip together when we travelled to the 2003 South Carolina Section Championship. I had already established myself as a top contender in practical shooting, and Mike was the most inquisitive person I had ever met. He wanted to know everything from my training regiment, to what I saw when the gun fired, to what I ate before a match! I just as- sumed back then that he was merely making small talk. Now I realize that whenever I gave him my take on things, he was processing everything I said. He was systematically laying the bricks in the foundation of his future career as a professional shooter and instructor...whether we knew it or not!
Throughout the years, our jobs have changed, as well as our professional relationship. But I’ve still managed to see that he is one of the most analytical shooters on the planet. His questions and endless quest for knowledge surely didn’t stop with me. He went on to pick the brains of many of the best competitive and tactical operators in the world, morphing his findings with his own techniques and styles into an easily usable and understandable guide to success.
Mike and I still compete and train together today. We share the same love for the sport of competitive shooting, the same drive to succeed, and the same commitment to improving oth- ers in the sport. Hell, we even share the same birthday! On the other hand, we have reached our goals in very different ways. Mike has managed to pave a very defined and logical path to suc- cess...one that I’m confident that anyone who is interested in improving their shooting will benefit from. I only wish he would have written this book 15 years ago!
It is my hope that you will benefit from Mike’s hard work as much as he has. I can promise you that the only way to make it happen is to TRAIN HARD!
Phil Strader