[demosthenes the elder]

there's a trick to teaching women (and kids, for that matter) how to easily rack the slide: tell them to strongly grip the slide knurl in their non-shooting hand, holding the gun near their solar plexus and pointing down-and-front, and then shove their gun-hand forward forcefully, holding the left hand stationary until the slide slips out of their grip. Using the triceps instead of the biceps seems to do the trick for the petite.

This also keeps them from riding the slide forward, which is a behavior I have noted among novice females more often than novice males. I think this is because men generally are more familiar with other machines, and sorta "ret" the fact that letting the slide slam forward will not "hurt" the pistol. I always tell both gender of trainee not to ride the slide, and have them practice doing it right over and over again before we load up even dummy rounds for trigger pull practice. It seems to me (though I have not kept accurate records of this) that women need to be riminded about not riding the slide more often in training than do men.

[flyer182]

Whatever you are doing to bring out this shooting in women the USMC would like to copy. It is unbelievably frustrating trying to qualify the females as opposed to the males. Handpicked PMI's. extra instruction, hell, we would have done anything to get the average up. End of the day they were still failing at 2 to 3 times the rate of the males.