Uses/how to's for range diary

[Tompac]

Working on getting more serious/consistent with my range diary. What do you include? What use do find for the information going forward? I'm old fat and slow but I've set some lofty goals for my shooting so I need all the help I can get. Now I'm breaking down matches by stage, listing my errors, what I call "bad shots" ( deltas or mikes), things I remember  doing wrong, ect. I also have video of matches when my wife goes with me, and I look at those and include comments. I don't do much if any with my practices, and nothing with my too infrequent dry fire sessions. I also shoot an air pistol for groups almost daily but don't include that info. Thoughts and recommendations appreciated. 

[10X]

That's all good stuff.   I'd add your physical/mental state each day (well rested?  overcaffeinated?  hungry/overfull?  dehydrated?)   Anything that might correlate with your performance.

[ArmyADub1]

Consider reflecting on what you were thinking about/focusing on.  Especially from the frame of: what you planned to think/focus on, what you actually ended up thinking/focusing on, why the difference, and the 'so what' from that deviation.

 

[johnbu]

I use it to force myself to DF practice. 

 

Sadly, i don't make entries daily (as i should for best improvement).

 

A "theoretical" suggestion.

Write down your match stats. Evaluate where you lost HF. Accuracy? Speed? Or ??

 

Make a practice plan to address the worst aspect  of that weakness. Track your actual practice of those drills, in the diary .... daily. Compare the next match performance to the last. Did that weakness show up again, or was the next one down the list now up? 

 

(And in full disclosure, i don't do this.... but i think i will start. But next matches won't be until spring! )

 

Oh, i too am "old, fat and slow", but the 2nd half of this year i decided to be less slow.  i threw caution to the wind and CHOSE to run matches at the fastest speed that i could.  i dropped 20-30 seconds off a typical match. Yea! But have 2-4 mikes per match (boo!). So now I'm working to improve accuracy AT THE SAME SPEED.  just making and writing a goal helps. At least it helped me.

Good luck!

[Glock26Toter]

Concentrate way more on what you did well and what improvements you made.  You don't teach an old dog new tricks by yelling at it.  You teach it with treats.  While it's necessary to identify goals created from identifying areas for improvement do that after you've talked about what went well and what you liked about the match. 

 

Do that for each stage.  I'll often say something like "yeah, but did you see the way I knocked down that plate rack" when the RO calls "mike!"  That keeps it on the positive side and when I started doing that I started having a lot more fun.   I sometimes will get low and beat myself up at a match.... but the matches where I don't do that and celebrate the good stuff are more fun and I feel like I got more out of it.  Same score.

 

Read "With Winning in Mind" by Lanny Bassham.  That's a great lesson on how to improve using positive reinforcement and journaling.  It changed my life.   

[swordfish]

On 12/11/2017 at 7:27 PM, Glock26Toter said:

Read "With Winning in Mind" by Lanny Bassham.  That's a great lesson on how to improve using positive reinforcement and journaling.  It changed my life.   

 

Definitely this. I've done things like this in the past to much success, and I'm doing it again with shooting and it's got me more motivated to eat better and train more and go to the gym. If I want to make it to the world shoot, I have to act like it.
 

I put all sorts of stuff. It's kinda like my bible. Chrono results with powder and bullet weights, live fire times, I need to start putting dry fire times in there too just to have a record. Keeping track of everything I eat is helping me lose weight. Keeping track of how much and what exercise I do helps me lift more.  Not that I put these in the shooting book, but I've kept track with different apps and notebooks over the years for different things.

 

Also you can show your book to people who know what the hell they're doing and they can critique and give pointers. Before I started putting everything in a book, I'd do the match "mistakes," or at least breaking down each stage after it was all over (the night of so I could remember) and putting down the biggest thing I thought could help me on each of the stages so far. Then for the next week or however long I'd try to practice as much of those "mistakes" as possible to correct them and build new habits. Also reading books and talking to more experienced shooters to figure out new techniques and tips to do, and making a list of that and always working on it. Crushing grip seems to be my biggest fault so far, too much dry fire and not enough live fire. So I go through the list I made and work on an aspect of that every so often.

[NewColonial]

I keep logs of range trips and of dry fire practice. I also keep a more extensive "journal' of match experiences. Ala, Lanny Bassham, I prefer a positive approach, with reminders and wins. Instead of "I didn't have my gun up when coming into position," I record "Remember to get gun up when coming into position." And I always write down the good stuff that happened, "Ran with grace." (Ok, that never happens.) "Made smooth target transitions." I never want to go back and read about what sucked. If I failed at something, I make sure to log what I will do to improve rather than what sucked.

[Tompac]

This is great stuff. Thanks to all