Dryfire Drill: Flashlight and pistol draw in dark room

I usually dryfire practice while my wife is putting my child down to sleep. So I have to be quiet, and don't usually use too much time to do it.Tonight, given that I bought a new flashlight (BECAUSE REASONS!!! I told my wife she spends money too, like on food, and buying children's books and things), I thought I would practice using my light in a defensive situation. I've read somewhere that most/many defensive gun uses happen in low light, so this is probably not getting as much practice as it should.To start, my living room was dark. Like I could walk around without the lights on because it was my own house dark, but not pitch black. If I was in someone else's house, I'd want a light. I then set my par timer app to 4 seconds and turned on my bluetooth headset. I gave a pause of 7sec between each par time to let me re-holster my gear. I was using my sirt pistol, but I could've been using my firearm with my Barrel Blok as well.My first dozen runs were hilariously bad. First I'd blow the flashlight draw and then I'd blow the single hand pistol draw. I began learning what it took to get the flashlight out quickly. I'd slap my hand down over the pocket to index the light and then I'd pinch the tail of the light between my index and thumb. Drawing it out, I'd bring it up to my cheek. Then I'd draw the pistol.After a while I got better, and then I started drawing both tools at the same time. I actually found that easier, because both hands could be working to lift my cover garment at the same time and then they'd both know what to do after that. Once I got that figured out, I dropped my par time to 3.3sec and I was meeting/beating that about 60% of the time and when I missed it, it was only by a fraction of a second.Mixing it upDo all of the above, but start closer and move backwards while completing the same tasks.I started turning away from my target by a few degrees, to simulate having to search for the target with the light before firing.I tried drawing the flashlight while my hand was on the holstered firearm. This was to simulate something threatening happening, but I wasn't sure I wanted to point a gun at it.You could put 1 and 2 together. Turn away from the target, draw the light, search for the target while your hand is on the holstered pistol, and then draw and engage.If you had a friend (and not just frens...), you could have them change the target in between reps to simulate shoot/no-shoot targets. Claude Werner taught me that practicing not to shoot should be just as important as practicing to shoot.What I learnedFrom now on, I'm going to bring my light up to my cheek bone every time I need it in a transitional space. I found the middle of the cheek was too low for my presentation. The high cheekbone area worked well to illuminate my sights.Having the gun canted slightly towards my mid-line helped keep my front sight lit by the light instead of getting lost in the shadow. This is also the "modern" technique for single-handed shooting, so that's a nice bonus.My light (a Streamlight ProTac 1aa, running off an AA and not a CR123) is 135 lumens. That was plenty to blast out a room in my house. While 1,000 lumens might be nice for setting the intruder's retinas on fire, it would probably be a lot for me too, especially if I had been sleeping. Anyway, do what you want, but you probably don't need something excessive for indoor use at least.Do you have any ideas for further ways to mix it up? Any suggestions for how to make it more realistic? Anything I should change? via /r/CCW http://bit.ly/2J7q9Mq