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How To Improve Movement Speed? Drills?


RolexJohn

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I shot my 2nd USPSA match this weekend, and it really shined a spotlight on what I feel is my biggest weakness - movement. 

We shot 8 stages - the last 5 of which were classifer stages.  I did reasonably well in 4 of the 5 classifiers.  I placed 1st,2nd,3rd, and 4th in 4 of the 5.  But I lost the most time during the first 3 non-classifer stages (where you have a lot more time available to lose).  I finished  27.16 seconds behind the 2nd place holder and 41.85 seconds behind 1st place holder - I came in 4th place.

I had the second highest A zone score in the match, and had zero misses.  That, combined with my classifier performance seems to suggest that gun handling and marksmanship isn't my biggest problem.  

Again, most of my lost time came from the first three stages – 32, 23,and 39 seconds respectively.  I placed 6th, 6th, and 10th on these stages.  My total time for these three stages was 94 seconds.  Comparing the same stages to the 2nd and 1st place holders:

2nd Place – 23, 17, and 28 with a total time of 68 seconds.  I gave up 26 seconds to the 2nd place holder.

1st Place – 18, 15, 24, with a total time of 57 seconds.  I gave up 37 seconds to the first place holder.

I ran these 3 stages pretty much the same as everyone else - USPSA stages seem much more straight forward than 3 Gun stages from a stage planning perspective.  I think I'm just moving too slowly from point to point - the classifier data seems to suggest that I'm pulling the trigger fast enough, reloading fast enough, etc. 

Any suggestions on drills I can do to improve my point to point movement?  Even a 5-10 second improvement on each of these stages would have pushed me up a place or two I believe. 

-John

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well, there's no such thing as pulling the trigger fast enough or reloading fast enough, but it does sound likely that the low-hanging fruit for you right now is movement.

IMHO, it's not movement speed that causes people to lose time, it's simply spending too much time not moving at all. What will help is if you start learning how to be unweighiting one foot and preparing to step off as soon as you break the last shot in a position, and start aiming earlier so you can shoot as soon as you have a stable sight picture (not necessarily stopped and setup and stable in a position). Ben Stoeger's dryfire book has some good drills but they are pretty much the sort of thing anyone can dream up. For example, set up 3 targets at 8-15 yards. Figure how long it takes you to shoot them in dryfire, then add 1/2 second to that time and shoot them then move, and see how far you can get. Experiment with how much preparation for movement you can do without disturbing your sight picture, etc.....

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^^ good stuff.

 

I've been trying to learn the dark art of hitting the target while moving.  Oddly, times and "score" shooting while moving is now starting to equalize between sprint to a point THEN shoot and shoot while moving to that point.  Maybe the practice is helping?

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moto brings up good points:  move as soon as the last shot breaks, and be on target before you stop moving.  

That being said...on long courses make sure you are SPRINTING to your next position; not running, jogging, or briskly walking (a mistake i made early on).  

Also on long courses, the distance between target transitions can be much greater than on classifiers, so check your transition time...it's quite easy to lose a second on each transition.

Ben Stoeger's champion shooting books have great dry fire drills.  One example:  http://benstoeger.com/index.php/gallery/22-first-category/83-90-degree-transitions

 

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Any video?  Get video.  Here are a couple things I see often that tend to slow shooters down.   Some of these are definitely an issue given how far you are behind other shooters.

  • Looking at targets for hits.  Never look at a target, trust your shot calling.
  • Not sprinting.  Everybody thinks they are moving fast, but most are not.  For a drill: draw, shoot 2, move to new position, shoot 2.  Only focus on how hard you leave the position and how hard you run.  Also do this drill with a hard reload, figure out what makes that reload and movement fastest for you.
  • Get reloads done quickly, the more you struggle getting a new mag in the gun the slower you run/move.
  • Gun should be up, sights acquired, and ready to shoot before you are settled into a new position.  It's common to get into position and then present the gun which is slow.
  • Shooting technique is also important to stage times.  While your accuracy may be good, you are giving away valuable time if you make wide transitions lazily, aim too precisely at close, easy targets and medium difficultly targets, miss steel, or fire make-up shots.  Also, be sure you are engaging targets of each array in an efficient order.  
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  • 2 years later...

I set up small 8-12 round stages, run it and write down all times between positions. Then work on speed firing 1 shot from position 1 then sprinting to position 2 and firing 1 shot. See how much time you can cut. I would think I was really sprinting, but found out doing this drill in hat I was not.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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I started using a speed ladder during training.  It has helped.  Also shooting on the move (moving into and out of positions) will greatly reduce stage time.

Any video you can reference?  You might think you're running when in reality, you're not.

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I used two drums to set up a drill where I walked a figure 8 and had a full size silhouette target. At the front of the 8 was about 10 yards at the back was about 15. This drill really helped me learn to shoot on the move. Another Good drill  is Steve Anderson's call it and leave it drill, it helped learn to shoot sooner coming into a position and leave sooner when I'm done shooting in that position. 

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I would suggest joining PTSG for at least a month and working through the movement drills on there. I like to work movement during every dry fire practice and probably every 4 or 5 live fire practices I focus on movement.


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I'm looking to speed up my movements as well. From my understanding you'll gain more time in transitions and getting in and out of position faster. I've been trying to lean out on the last shot in position to more or less fall out of position. I've also been trying to improve the set up when getting to position. Ideally you want to set up as you are getting into position, but this is all a little more tricky than it sounds...  I'd also love advice, drills or videos.

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  • 2 years later...

Lots of great advice already posted - I would get good video footage of your runs and then also record the folks that you are using for base lines.  Use your computer to do some analysis on the dead time in transitions - i.e seconds between your last shot fired and the first shot fired in the next position.  There are some good freeware video editing software packages that can make this easy based on displaying the audio track which shows exactly when the shot is fired.  If you're running the same stage plans as the other folks, you'll be able to see exactly where you are losing time.  There is a temptation to haul between positions but the small amount of time you gain in really pumping arms and legs can be easily lost in efficency. 

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I shot a course that zig zagged all the way up to the front. I really focused on finishing on the last target before moving up, practically falling out of the box(one leg up and falling forward). It felt super fast and smooth. Leaving out of the position while firing last shots are a huge help. 

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  • 3 months later...
  • 7 months later...

Took a Competition Skills class with Green Ops and Matt really emphasized that the best place to make gains is on movement including the tips shared above: break the shot and move as the gun recoils, be ready to shoot before stopping, not looking for hits but trusting your call. Another tip I liked was the idea of coming to a stop with a hard step on your trailing leg and a soft step onto your lead leg which results in great stability faster.

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  • 1 month later...

This is a good topic, and I would be interested as well in some new/updated comments.  In today's age, I suppose video of your practice, and matches is playing a greater roll in training than a decade before.  I would be very interested in finding a computer program that helps me analyze my video.  One of my biggest frustrations is having to analyze everything and then make adjustments or improvements on my own.  I am a self taught shooter, so most of my improvement came from shooting and follow up analysis.  A personal trainer or instructor would be the bomb.  

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5 hours ago, Shady said:

This is a good topic, and I would be interested as well in some new/updated comments.  In today's age, I suppose video of your practice, and matches is playing a greater roll in training than a decade before.  I would be very interested in finding a computer program that helps me analyze my video.  One of my biggest frustrations is having to analyze everything and then make adjustments or improvements on my own.  I am a self taught shooter, so most of my improvement came from shooting and follow up analysis.  A personal trainer or instructor would be the bomb.  

There are lots of good coaches you can send your training and match videos to, for them to pay to analyse with voice over, drawings, etc.

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On 7/15/2022 at 5:12 PM, StefVanHauwe said:

There are lots of good coaches you can send your training and match videos to, for them to pay to analyse with voice over, drawings, etc.

Ok.  Any names or companies I could look up on the interweb?  Or do I just do a google search?   Thanks.  

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2 hours ago, Shady said:

Ok.  Any names or companies I could look up on the interweb?  Or do I just do a google search?   Thanks.  

I've already called upon Kita Buse, and was pleased with her approach and pricing. I think Mason Lane, Ben Stoeger, Tom Castro also offer thses type of services.

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23 hours ago, StefVanHauwe said:

I've already called upon Kita Buse, and was pleased with her approach and pricing. I think Mason Lane, Ben Stoeger, Tom Castro also offer thses type of services.

Thanks for the recommendations.  

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  • 9 months later...

What i see a lot of new shooters do is admire their work first off

two shots then stare at it dont do that

shot call move

however i know when i was a new shooter i was scared of running with a gun and even when i got more confident with it i felt out of control at times

what i found is if u dont feel that uneasy feeling u arent moving hard enough 

run 100% push 100%
go in your back yard or range unloaded gun set up two targets dry

at the beep in one box shoot two dryfire run as hard as possible to next two more

find a par time work to reduce that par time

knowing how to enter and exit saves lots of time as well look up drills on that

a real good one is track the a zone

on your walk thru u see all the targets wall may be blocking view of several you know they are there have your gun up ready tracking that target till it’s visible 

gun always up

dont run then mount then shoot

80% of the run 100% hard last 20

slowing bringing the gun up

in your video slowed down u should still be moving when your first shot fires

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  • 6 months later...

Simple box to box drills. Set up 2 sticks 8 yards or so apart. Then two targets on either side. Start in the middle, on buzzer draw and cross one stick and efficiently engage the target (gun up and ready, firing as soon as youre in the shooting area etc) then as soon as you get your four shots off, book it to the other side and do the same. Vary having no shoots on one target per side so you can hard entry or hard exit, or both. Focus on starting to leave the position the second your last shot goes off, and firing a shot the second your back foot lifts off the ground and youre considered in the shooting area. 

 

Literally do this a ton and it will translate into your shooting. I did this 3x a week live fire during the entire summer of covid and its the most ive improved in a few months. 

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