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training to get to master


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so what kind of training did everyone use to get to master class? or even grand master? what were your times to achieve such a ranking?

 

I feel like I have the ability but would love some expert advice on the know hows to make it

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Do some searching around here and on the web for dryfire training and practice.

 

Also take a heavy look at Ben Stoeger's books on Amazon.

 

To legitimately make GM somewhere between 15 and 60 minutes of dryfire practice per day, along with live fire one or two times per week? That's a pretty common recipe.

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10 hours ago, sheepdog69 said:

so what kind of training did everyone use to get to master class? or even grand master? what were your times to achieve such a ranking?

 

I feel like I have the ability but would love some expert advice on the know hows to make it

 

My times to achieve master ranking were pretty fast. My grandmaster times are even faster.

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It took me about 3 years to make Master.  At the time I was just ate up with shooting and had access to a nice private indoor range 24/7 and went to every match in my area.  I dry fired and practiced reloads, oddball starts, and maneuvering with the gun about 3-5 times a week, and shot about 200-500 rounds per week either for matches or practicing.   At the time I wanted to be a solid shooter and do well at matches, getting bumped up in class was just a by-product of that.

 

I should also qualify that I made Master in open with iron sights and a single stack .38 super, and there was no Grand Master class yet.  The competition was tough, but we were all friends who helped each other get better.   I still keep my open percentage above 85%, but I shoot for different reasons now and my class is pretty much only academically interesting to me. 

Edited by Bamboo
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Master is easy for the average Joe if you actually get Ben's dry fire book and do the work. Thirty minutes a day and it won't take long.

You could accelerate that if you shoot a lot of matches and shoot live rounds in training a couple times a month.

Literally anyone without a physical disability can make master of they do a reasonable amount of work, intelligently.

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Stop thinking and start dryfiring.  Stop thinking and start shooting.  Be a chameleon.  There is so much video of the great ones.  Watch it, study it, copy it.  Be a chameleon.

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I used the Ben Stoeger and did three of the drills a night for 5 - 10 minutes each. Not really much live fire... maybe once a month.


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How long did it take you to make Master doing that?


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I think the common thread here is "Work."   

 

As most are saying, M class takes work.  You need to begin identifying your areas of weakness and training to eliminate them.  How you go about it is up to you, and full of recommendations on books, drills, and the like.  You need to try them, see what works, and keep trying them until you find that either some, or a collection of them all eventually work for you.  But all that is... well, work!

 

What most GM's will tell you, is that for every live round fired many, many more were dry-fired.

 

My dry/live fire ratio is very low and I spent a lot of time "just having fun" and not taking matches very seriously.  I had been shooting USPSA for like 8 years (with about a 3 year hiatus) before I made A class and did that about 1 year after adopting a serious attitude.  4 years later, I've been a GM for almost a year now. 

Meanwhile, Big Panda made GM in a couple of years.  (can't remember exactly, but it was fast).  I'll bet his dry/live fire ratio puts mine to shame.  I know the number of books he's read and classes he's attended does.  As does he, when we compete. 

 

I'm OK with that because the work I was willing to put in has made me the shooter I am today.  No more, no less.  

 

Either way. Work/experience is what it takes.   And since everyone is different on how much time and at what level of work they can (or are willing to) put in this is not an easy answer.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
2 hours ago, stuey93 said:

Thanks lots of good info above. Would you guys recommend setting a hard date or timeframe?

 

Good question. It can be a bit morally deflating if you don't make it by then, but it can possibly be motivating to practice more if you are getting close to that date but still haven't made it.

 

You also have to keep in mind that there are some things that are not really entirely in your control. I was getting close to 85% last year, and then had 1 unfortunate day where I shot a 70% and a 71%. If those classifiers had been 1.5% worse, they wouldn't have counted, and I would have made master the following month. I consoled myself with the knowledge that instead of alternating between 80's and 60's, I was alternating between 80's and 70's, which is an improvement, even if it ended up lowering my percentage.

 

What worked for me was analyzing what skills were hurting my classifiers, and working more on those skills. Fortunately, those skills (in my case, 10-15 yard partials, and particularly second shot accuracy and shot-calling on those targets) also help in field courses.

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Started shooting Uspsa around march of 2015 made C class in June I think shooting production.

 

bought a limited gun that winter and went from B class to master in limited in around 15 months

 

2015 I did t practice and very little dryfire

2016 I practice 500ish rounds every couple weeks and dryfired around 15-30 mins a day 3-4 days a week. Likely would have bumped faster had I not been unable to shoot or hold a gun for a month last June/July due to a motorcycle accident.

 

it took a structured dry fire plan for me along with some live fire.

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Started shooting Uspsa around march of 2015 made C class in June I think shooting production.
 
bought a limited gun that winter and went from B class to master in limited in around 15 months
 
2015 I did t practice and very little dryfire
2016 I practice 500ish rounds every couple weeks and dryfired around 15-30 mins a day 3-4 days a week. Likely would have bumped faster had I not been unable to shoot or hold a gun for a month last June/July due to a motorcycle accident.
 
it took a structured dry fire plan for me along with some live fire.

Common theme seems to be if you want it you gotta work for it[emoji106]
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I also left out both this year and last I shot SS for 3 months until after nationals so I wasn't shooting limited for 6 months of that.

 

like anything you will get out of it why you put into it.

Edited by Foxj66
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I shot my first USPSA classifier on 10/03/15.  My first classification was C.  I worked through some dry fire training for a while but then had some issues at home that kept me from training.  I started training hard again in October of 2016 dry firing at least 30 minutes 5 days a week and live fire about once per week, but not always.  I went from C to A in December.  I have struggled with consistency and getting my head right when shooting classifiers.  In the last 4-5 months I have been trying to dry fire every day but sometimes its only 5 days a week with one day of live fire 300-500 rounds.  I fully intend to make master this weekend at our classifier match.  I'll let you know how it goes.  

 

In the latest front site some of the top ballers right now mentioned dry fire of at least an hour a day with 1-2 live fire sessions a week.  Im going to have to step up my training to get to the next level.  

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I shot my first USPSA classifier on 10/03/15.  My first classification was C.  I worked through some dry fire training for a while but then had some issues at home that kept me from training.  I started training hard again in October of 2016 dry firing at least 30 minutes 5 days a week and live fire about once per week, but not always.  I went from C to A in December.  I have struggled with consistency and getting my head right when shooting classifiers.  In the last 4-5 months I have been trying to dry fire every day but sometimes its only 5 days a week with one day of live fire 300-500 rounds.  I fully intend to make master this weekend at our classifier match.  I'll let you know how it goes.  
 
In the latest front site some of the top ballers right now mentioned dry fire of at least an hour a day with 1-2 live fire sessions a week.  Im going to have to step up my training to get to the next level.  

Good stuff, Good Luck with your M
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On 6/30/2017 at 2:44 PM, CrashDodson said:

In the latest front site some of the top ballers right now mentioned dry fire of at least an hour a day with 1-2 live fire sessions a week.  Im going to have to step up my training to get to the next level.  

 

I like practicing, but that seems a little excessive to try to work into an actual life. I dry-fired a LOT in the last few years, much of it was useful, but much of it was just killing time and making me feel like i was doing something constructive. It is important imho to make your practice time count, but I'm not sure how to advise someone else to do that. For me personally, it made a big difference to start shooting more partials in practice; to worry less about outright speed, and more about accurate speed. It is easy to fool yourself on open targets and pretend you are seeing an acceptable sight picture.

 

I was recklessly shooting el prez in practice under 5 seconds a year or two ago. most times I landed enough hits to make a good score (in practice), but there was a lot of hope going on, and not much actual shot-calling. And also not much progress in classifier scores. But after I started mostly training on partials, I saw my classifier scores and match results both step up. I suspect I was guilty of the famous 1 sight-picture:2 trigger pulls problem, which works great at 0-7 yards, but gets progressively worse after that.

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I initially classified as B in production. I was M a year and a half later. I made a goal to make M in a year from starting. It didn't happen. But that didn't deter me.

 

If you just want to "make M" then all you really need to practice is a surrender draw to 3 partial targets, a reload and then shooting the 3 partial targets either freestyle, strong hand only or weak hand only. There, that's like 60% of the classifiers. You can run the math to know exactly what you need to do on each one to shoot an 85% or greater.

 

Steve Anderson's "Refinement and Repetition" book is great for teaching you how to make M and GM very quickly.

 

Set up a classifier, run it and see where you are. Chances are you'll need both better hits and better time. And chances are your draw or reload will need work. But use the data from different places, like azshooters and the classifier subforum here and you'll quickly figure out how to do the math and see where you're at. Lots of people use certain classifiers as a bench mark, like El Pres.

 

If you have a match with a classifier twice a month and you really work at acing the classifiers, you can make M in a year for sure. Just by practicing a few simple skills and getting really good at them. You'll be M. Sweet! Some people will call you a "paper master" behind your back, or will make extra effort to beat you. So what?

 

Now, do you want to be an M class who can show up most places and be in contention to win? That's a whole different kind of training. Yeah, skills are skills. But acing a classifier is not the same as shooting a whole match.

 

RESULTS=EFFORT x TIME. There you go, the formula for success.

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