Saibot's Performance Journal

[saibot]

 

practicing some vision drills to pull my focus back to the front sight with both eyes open while seeing only one fuzzy target. I think if I can start shooting with both eyes open it's going to be the biggest improvement I'll make this year.

...beat.

 

That is great, dude, I am glad to read that retraining for both eyes open seems promising for you. My last biggest improvement in shooting was vision-related too. I love vision!

Man it's tough! It's just so ingrained in me to close an eye to get a hard focus on the front sight. With both eyes open I don't seem to be able to get a hard focus on the inside front sight without creating two targets. I just need to spend more time on it I guess. I wasn't going to change anything before tomorrow's match, but will start hitting this hard soon.

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.25.13)

Since my elbows and wrists are staring to show some wear I intended to take it easy tonight but wound up having too much fun and spent 1.5 hours dry firing. I started with my usual, a couple of "stages" cold to see how it goes like that since I usually start a match in that state. The first run was pretty bad, the second better, and by the third I was cooking. I need to learn to cook on the first cold run. Not sure how to go about that, open to suggestions!

I did the first dozen drills of Steve Anderson's book and mixed in a few of my own. I then set up two shooting boxes about 15' apart with a single target in front of each. I would draw and "shoot" two rounds, move to the second box and "shoot" two on the second target. It was pretty ugly at first but I worked on starting to move as I was shooting the last shot on the first target and the breaking the shot as I was stepping into the second box and was able to consistently do it in 3.4 seconds. Great drill! I hope all of these little efficiencies stick with me on match day.

I finished up with running the same two stages I started out with and was hit and miss since I was getting tired and needed to eat some Alieve. Looking forward to tomorrow's match! I hope my lack of live fire isn't going to burn me too badly.

[saibot]

Match (10.26.13)

I made it out to Dundee today for a USPSA match which was Halloween themed since it's right around the corner. The Glock is starting to feel a little more natural now and let me focus more on just shooting than the last pistol match I shot, which a first with the G34. I shot very consistent today and didn't have any major mistakes. My shot calling has suffered since I do a lot of dry fire and not much live fire and I didn't notice I shot into the black on a target earning me a Mike. One stage had you start with a Trick or Treat pumpkin filled with candy and you had to carry it the entire stage. I didn't realize the awkward position which made reloading almost impossible so I ate some serious time. Other than that, I shot everything else pretty well and with a reshoot on the classifier I shot just under an A. Still not enough to push me to B class, but dang close. Most of my reloads were really fast and I didn't miss any the entire match. All in all, a really fun match!

[saibot]

Kind of a slacker day for me today, didn't touch a pistol. Read Sean Gaines' excellent post and spent some watching the YouTube videos he posted with examples of great footwork. I spent a little time comparing those with my videos and found some big areas for improvement to work on. I need to GET MOVING SOONER!

I hope my elbows, wrists, and hip feel better tomorrow. (Who am I kidding? I'll be back at it tomorrow regardless). So close to B class!

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.28.13)

I spent about an hour "shooting" some stages and working on my draw and reloads. The draws were really starting to cook which was great because everything seemed to go down hill from there. My stepping draw drills were hideous and everything seemed slow and just off tonight. I probably should just call it a night when things go like this but I powered on through. Missed as many reloads as I hit, slow times, etc. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be fine tomorrow. That's what I get for taking a day off I guess.

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.29.13)

I did an hour of dry fire tonight, starting with the Stoeger A drills (draws and reloads) and was a little slower than usual, but then again, I was really focusing on getting real hits, not just blasting at the targets, which has been a problem for me in the past. Practiced transitions with a cadence which is pretty strange. Slowing down to speed up...

Then on to movement drills. I put 3 targets about 10' apart and each had to be shot twice from within a shooting box. I was able to get it down to just under 5 seconds. Just about 5 seconds when going from right to left. For kicks, I started throwing a reload in between T1 and T2, then another reload between T2 and T3. I was very surprised that it didn't change the time for me! Great to know that I can top off in under 10' with no time penalty. That is about 2 - 3 steps. Good info to know.

[OrigamiAK]

 

 

practicing some vision drills to pull my focus back to the front sight with both eyes open while seeing only one fuzzy target. I think if I can start shooting with both eyes open it's going to be the biggest improvement I'll make this year.

...beat.

 

That is great, dude, I am glad to read that retraining for both eyes open seems promising for you. My last biggest improvement in shooting was vision-related too. I love vision!

Man it's tough! It's just so ingrained in me to close an eye to get a hard focus on the front sight. With both eyes open I don't seem to be able to get a hard focus on the inside front sight without creating two targets. I just need to spend more time on it I guess. I wasn't going to change anything before tomorrow's match, but will start hitting this hard soon.

 

I would think just continuing practice separating your convergence from accommodation will improve things over time.

Don't disregard the tape-occlusion trick either; that's a tried and true way.

Even though I and many people shoot with both eyes open, I am not convinced that shooting with one eye closed isn't viable. I haven't spent any time with that so I don't know. Can you meet some shooting problems successfully when target-focused and shooting with both eyes open? Or do you end up with some visual confusion with that?

[saibot]

 

 

practicing some vision drills to pull my focus back to the front sight with both eyes open while seeing only one fuzzy target. I think if I can start shooting with both eyes open it's going to be the biggest improvement I'll make this year.

...beat.

 

That is great, dude, I am glad to read that retraining for both eyes open seems promising for you. My last biggest improvement in shooting was vision-related too. I love vision!

Man it's tough! It's just so ingrained in me to close an eye to get a hard focus on the front sight. With both eyes open I don't seem to be able to get a hard focus on the inside front sight without creating two targets. I just need to spend more time on it I guess. I wasn't going to change anything before tomorrow's match, but will start hitting this hard soon.

 

I would think just continuing practice separating your convergence from accommodation will improve things over time.

Don't disregard the tape-occlusion trick either; that's a tried and true way.

Even though I and many people shoot with both eyes open, I am not convinced that shooting with one eye closed isn't viable. I haven't spent any time with that so I don't know. Can you meet some shooting problems successfully when target-focused and shooting with both eyes open? Or do you end up with some visual confusion with that?

Well, we'll see since I'm having a heck of a time accommodating back to my front sight without creating two targets. Trying to shoot with just one eye induces a pause that I've noticed when I close the non-dominant eye while the new sight picture comes online. Hard to explain, but that doesn't seem to be getting any faster. Makes me want to shoot Open so I can have a red dot.

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.30.13)

Had a really good session tonight going over the Stoeger A drills then some transition drills. Adjusted my grip just a little bit and there is a tipping point where if I go too far I can't reach the mag release, but going over a little bit more helps me see the sights a little faster.

I repeated the drill from last night with the 3 targets spaced out and got it down to 4.3 cleanly. Once I added reloads between the targets it bumped me a little to 4.6. Finished up with a couple of "stages," some reload drills, and shooting on the move. I'm really working on trying to get moving sooner without messing up my last shot. It doesn't seem like much, but it shows up on the timer so I can quantify it. All in all, about 1.25 hours tonight.

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.31.13 - boo!)

I spent an hour "shooting" some stages, worked on some transition drills, and shooting on the move. Pretty darn productive for only an hour. Funny that it seems like just a few minutes and boom, an hour's gone.

[saibot]

Live fire (11.1.13)

I was able to slip off to the range for a quick 200 rounds of practice today. I started out shooting the small 6" plate at 40 yards with mixed results, about 50 percentish. Moved to the 25 yard line and hit it 8 out of 10 times. Shot a pretty good 10 round group on the 25 yard slow fire target. Shot the 4 aces drill a few times to an USPSA head. I setup the same drill I've been doing in dry fire with the three targets at 10 yards and tried hitting them all while moving. Next was the Frank Garcia's dots drill and did manage to get a group all within the dot, a first for me. I worked on transitions with 3 USPSA targets about 2 yards apart from each other.

There seems to be pretty big disparity between my dry fire and my live fire times so I'm going to start mixing the dry fire and live fire at the range and see if that helps.

No dry fire tonight, spent the evening converting the 1050 over to 9mm.

[saibot]

Dry fire (11.2.13)

I spent 1.5 hours dry firing tonight, starting with a couple of warm up stages. Coming in cold, I'm really rough. After some warm up I'm significantly better. I'll have to figure out a way to collapse that delta. I practiced some transition drills, draws and reloads. I busted out Ben Stoeger's dry fire book and did the "Far Close Far" drill with a final par time of 2.7 seconds, 3.8 with a reload thrown in. Next I did the Far Far 90 Twist Close" drill and was really focusing on a good sight picture and driving the gun hard to the 90 degree target, with a final par time of 3.4 seconds. My reloads were starting to decay so I worked on them a little more until they were tight again. I then ran through the first two stages again to compare the times. As expected, ended faster. Wrapped up with a little shooting on the move and some eye focus practice.

[saibot]

Dry fire (11.3.13)

I spent around 1.5 - 2 hours doing the usual process; start cold on a couple of stages to see how it goes (usually ugly until I've run through it a few times and get warmed up), and then hit the drills. Worked the "90 Close 90" from Ben's book pretty hard and then spent some time with my draw. Still pretty slow and still not perfect (always a work in progress). Did about a billion draw, 2 shots on 3 targets, reload, 2 more shots on three targets and got it sped up a bit more than usual. More stages, then worked on snapping my draw which is pretty darn fast, but not super consistent. Finished with shooting on the move.

[saibot]

Dry fire (11.4.13)

Fun little session tonight starting with my 2 standard benchmark stages to see how I perform when cold. Started pretty strong on the first run and pooched the next couple before getting warmed up. I did the next two drills from Ben's dry fire book, "Close 90 Close 90 Close," starting at 3.5 seconds and 4.20 with a reload thrown in. Next it was the "Close 90 Partial 90 Close" with a 3.5 starting time and 4.2 with the reload. A couple of things that were noteworthy; the times didn't vary staring on any of the targets, even the center. I thought all of the direction changes would have taken longer, but it didn't seem to have any effect on the time. I also though shooting the left, then partial, reload then right would be the fastest since I already had my index that I could carry over on the partial target, left, reload, partial, right was about .2 faster consistently. Crazy.

Next was 2 on 3, reload, 2 on 3. Left to right was down to the 4.5 second zone but the right to left is slower and sloppier. I'll have to tighten that up. Finally, I ended with a couple of stages and some moving and shooting drills. I also played a bit with some vision/focus practice. Shooting with both eyes open is going to be tough I believe.

[saibot]

Dry fire (11.5.13)

Stared with my "benchmark stages" and much to my delight I started strong tonight and nailed it off the bat. The next two weren't quite as good, but not bad. Still trying to compress the cold vs. warm delta. Making progress. Shot 2 on 3, reload 2 on 3 both directions, then the next Ben Stoeger dry fire drill. Landed with a par time of 4.2 and just 4.4 with a reload in there. Not sure what that means. Finished up with some stages and shooting on the move. Good times!

[saibot]

Visual training (11.6.13)

Stuck in a hotel in a different city, so no pistol to dry fire with. I made the most of it and practiced the vision drills from OrigamiAK and was finally able to decouple my accommodation from my convergence on demand. I’ll have to get a post put together on what all of that means, but it’s all to basically help me start shooting with both eyes open. Using eyes/eye muscles in a new way so my eyeball actually hurts if you can believe it. Also re-reading Brian Enos’ book.

[Daan]

That sounds really interesting, as a cross dominant shooter. Looking forward to your post on shooting with both eyes open.

[emjei]

Can you post the link to those eye excersices ??? Ill be in a Hotel for the next 10 days also ....

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

[saibot]

Daan, emjei,

I'll get my post up ASAP. I spoke with OrigamiAK about updating his document and getting it out to you guys and he's going to work on it tonight.

Stay tuned.

[saibot]

Dry fire (11.7.13)

Back home! I'm beyond beat but I wanted to get some practice in since I was without pistol yesterday. Started with my "benchmark stages" and really tried to feel like I do when I'm warmed up and did about as well as I do when I actually am warmed up. Yay for progress. Did Stoeger's "Distant Target Challenge" and got the time to first shot down to 1.6 seconds. Next was transition drills and then movement drills with 3 targets 10' apart. 4.6 seconds to do it cleanly and 5 seconds with reloads between them all. Ended with a couple of dry fire stages and a little bit of shooting on the move. Also worked very briefly on the vision drills. Too tired to keep going tonight.

[emjei]

What are the vision drills ??? Dont forget about that ....lol

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

[saibot]

emjei-

I'll get them posted as soon as OrigamiAK revises them. What I have was pretty much a collection of notes that he is going to clean up. There is a lot of defining terms so the instructions make sense. Even with that I started off doing it incorrectly at first, so you really have to have the nomenclature before hand.

[OrigamiAK]

Ok guys, the vision stuff is right here: http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=184615

[saibot]

Thanks, Gabe. Much cleaner.

[saibot]

Dry fire (11.8.13)

I spent about a 1.5 hours dry firing doing my standard "benchmark stages," then a couple of new stages, Stoeger's Distant SHO/WHO stage, 2 on 3/reload/2 on 3 transition drill, 3 target moving drills, then a movement drill where I draw and put 2 on the first target then move about 25 feet to a shooting box and engage a second target. Getting low and decelerating early helped get the times down. Lots of shooting on the move drills and then just working on my draw which is getting a little sloppy. Finished with a couple more stages. Trying to get tuned up for tomorrow's match.