Jake Di Vita

FWIW, it took me almost 10 years of competing before I stopped beating myself on a consistent basis...and even now it still happens occasionally. Being able to execute on demand when it matters is easily one of the most challenging aspects of the sport. That's a big reason why I don't have a problem with that ability being fairly heavily rewarded on occasional stages like these. Try not to get down on yourself about it...It's really freaking hard to walk up to a stage like this and nail a great performance the first time. As you saw, even some world champs couldn't manage it this time around.

It's not even that the entire match should be extremely difficult. It just needs to test very challenging shooting somewhere. If there were a bunch of stages like this I think there would be a valid concern because then you're putting too much emphasis on one aspect of shooting skill. In order to declare a shooter being the national champion, you should test as many facets of shooting as you can at the match. I think having a standards stage with very challenging free/strong/weak shooting is an effective way of testing those modalities without having it overwhelm the entire match.

I know we aren't going to agree on this Cha-lee, but in the effort of discussion....Sometimes people need a slap in the face (or kick in the junk). I know we have different ideas of what nationals should be. If I remember correctly, you feel nationals should be the shining example for local matches (I feel that is the role of sectional or maybe area matches). I feel like nationals should find the best shooter at the match. In order to do that part of the test needs to be very mechanically challenging. Ultimately, it's only roughly 5% of the match and it rewarded the people who were able to execute when it mattered. Max zeroed the stage and impressively still won the match. The top 20 scores in Open had nine people shoot it clean, eight people had one penalty, and three people had two penalties. In CO, which appeared to be a much shallower field, the top 20 consisted of 16 people that had two or fewer penalties with the other four people have three penalties. That really doesn't sound that bad to me. Clearly the PCC boys and girls had a massive advantage compared to pistols. Roughly 70/200 pistol shooters zeroed the stage. A lot of people are going to feel this is too many. I think those are acceptable casualty numbers for a single stage at the national championship.

I do not agree. In my opinion, being physically relaxed does not make you fast. Having proper body tension combined with an effective grip and stance manages recoil more effectively than the same grip and stance while being relaxed. Better recoil management means less gun/body movement. Less gun/body movement leads to faster shooting and better accuracy at speed. You can still be very fast and accurate while being relaxed, but in my opinion you'll never be maximizing your ability.

Being physically relaxed is massively overrated...Being mentally relaxed comes from proper preparation and experience.

Why? How do you think this will make his competitive shooting better? More to the point, how do you think closing one eye costs him match points? I highly doubt he's running around the stage with only one eye open the entire time. It likely just happens when he starts to aim. You're saying to put this at the top of his priority list, I think that should be reserved for things that will give him the highest return on match points. I don't think shooting with both eyes open will ever be more valuable than the brick and mortar skills of uspsa. I've completely reworked my grip and stance multiple times after making GM. Year long rebuilds.

You aren't plateauing because of shooting with only one eye open. Unless you're busy face shooting people, shooting with both eyes open isn't that big of a deal. You also aren't going to make any significant changes in 20 days. My general rule of thumb is that it takes about a year to make a significant change in your mechanics.

Hey man if that's what you want to do, more power to ya. For me, that isn't nearly enough. I don't want to just survive one handed stages...I want to dominate them. You'd be surprised how many match points you can pick up on these stages if you excel at them because most people do just try to survive them and/or have less formidable ability in the first place. Minimum 2 days a week I do all dryfire drills freestyle, strong, weak. On the rest of the days I still try and devote 10-15 minutes to it. We all have limited practice time. Most of my dry fire is done when sane people are sleeping. The extra time devoted to one handed shooting is worth it. I don't think you fully appreciate just how valuable it is.

Locking joints is in general bad practice for absorbing energy. Try to go for straight but not locked. Slightly bent is also acceptable.

Couple of things. It's really not about how much you see that at your matches. It's about becoming as good of a shooter as you can possibly be. In general, the type of person that thinks they don't need to practice it much because they don't see it much are the same people who will get bent over by a weakhand stage when they do throw one in or you run into it at a higher level match. Eliminate your weaknesses, regardless of whether or not you get bitten by them often. Getting better with your weak hand will also improve your general gun handling ability. If you become a savage with weakhand only, some of that ability will transfer over to strong hand only and freestyle. Shooting with your offhand will teach you things that you'll usually gloss over and not notice when shooting freestyle.

Yeah, if only it actually worked like that...but it doesn't. If you shoot slow, you'll be slow. That's totally fine. The way to improve that is to train on the edge of what you're capable of. Most weak hand problems can be corrected over time with just an hour or so of focused dryfire per week. People just avoid doing that like they avoid going to the dentist.

Whenever I hear this saying it makes me want to jam ice picks into my ears. Slow is not smooth. Slow is slow and smooth is smooth. They have a miniscule causal relationship with each other.

Yeah...assuming about 10 yards, 1.25 draw and 1.5 reload is extremely conservative for GM level ability. Even in matches where I regularly shoot at 80-85% pace I'm still usually faster than those quoted times, and I'm nothing special.

Well thought out strength and conditioning program with MobilityWod > Yoga > ... > ... > Shakeweight > Tai Chi

I shot at stage at a Rayner's local match a long time ago. The stage was 6 rounds required. Big wall with two swingers behind it that you could only see in the arc. Popper to the left of the wall activated the left swinger, popper on the right activated the right swinger. My first attempt at the stage I shot it activator, activator, one, one, one, one (one shot per pass per swinger, they made 2 passes each). It was our last stage so I shot it again with a different plan (not for score of course). 3 rounds left popper, then 5 or 6 rounds at where the swinger was going to appear as fast as I could, 3 rounds right popper, 5 or 6 where the swinger was going to appear as fast as I could. Each swinger only made one pass. The 2nd method was multiple seconds faster with 3 hits on each target. I found it interesting that shooting ~18 rounds on a 6 round stage produced a way higher hit factor. I'd like to play around with that 2nd method more in practice. Shooting fast swingers that you can't trap conventionally requires reacting when you see the target appear. That other method requires no reacting at all. I'm not necessarily recommending that to anyone, just interesting food for thought.

Just finished reading the article. My first thought is I really need to read the full papers of the studies that were quoted in the article before I decide what I think about it. When it comes to shooting I do think good old simple rushing is going to be a larger cause of choking than the left side the brain interfering. I appreciate the author's efforts although I don't think there is as much meat here as is suggested. That being said, it wouldn't be bad to give it a try. Might be interesting to track a full season of matches without "priming the right hemisphere" then tracking a full season ball squeezing and compare the two. I'd bet there are at least shooters that would even benefit from a placebo effect. For me, I'm probably just gonna keep dry firing. I feel the best ways to prevent choking is preparation (The law of seven P's rings true to me) and mindset.

I'm sure it is. Unfortunately taking the easier path almost never leads you to peak performance.

Why not just dryfire? You'll still warm up your forearms, wrists, and fingers and it's a hell of a lot more applicable than squeezing balls, as fun as that might be.

Yeah, that's why I said in my first post that the inward tension on the gun needs to come from the wrists while keeping the elbows in a lower externally rotated position.

There's something to be said about analyzing the details. As a coach I want to understand the mechanics of everything I do and teach. One of my rules as a coach is that if I can't explain the mechanics behind what I'm telling you to do I shouldn't be telling you to do it.. I find the more that people understand what they are doing and why they are doing it, the shorter their learning curve becomes. I agree with a slight bend in the elbows. As far as having the elbows flared out or not flared out, it is not situationally dependent at all in my opinion. Everyone is different, but our bodies all follow the same principles. The most stable position of the shoulder in all ranges of flexion is external rotation. This fact is not up for debate. If you let your elbows flare outwards, you are in violation of this principle. Does that mean you can't shoot well like that? Of course not. One only needs to look at Vogel to see that. It is without a doubt a less than ideal position though. What happens "naturally" means nothing. I tell most people that if you're doing something athletic and it feels comfortable, it is almost certainly wrong or at least not as good as it could be. The body doesn't just assume it's best positions on it's own. You have to put yourself there and then hold yourself there. It's "natural" for most people to slouch in their chair...does that mean it's good? Of course not. The act of shooting is very simple. Simple does not mean easy though. Don't worry man. After shooting some form of competition for 17 years and dry firing more than most people, I still have similar problems. In fact if someone told me they never screw their grip up, I'd call them a liar.

I like clamping your grip towards the barrel axis a lot. However I think it is less than ideal to allow your elbows to flare out while doing it as the shoulder doesn't operate very well when flexed and internally rotated. I prefer to keep the elbows more in (externally rotated) and clamp towards the barrel axis from my wrists. I feel this gives me the best of both worlds. I get what he's saying here and it makes some sense in theory, but in practice it doesn't really hold water. The grip is where effective recoil management starts. Having an effective grip also allows you to keep the gun steadier while pulling the trigger quickly. The thought that you need an "in-line grip" to shoot accurately is just patently false. Some of those spec ops guys are pretty good shooters however most of them are very unimpressive with a pistol. If someone is pulling shots it isn't because the gun is offset in their hand. If you and I went to the range and set up a 20 yard plate, you can put the gun in my hands any way you want to...offset left, offset right, upside down, whatever...I guarantee I can still hit that plate every time. The reason is because I know how to pull the trigger without moving the gun. As I said earlier I think keeping your elbows in is a good thing. As far as keeping the gun in line with your arm, I wouldn't worry too much about that. Focus on having a solid grip, clamp towards the bore axis from the wrists, elbows in, arms mostly straight (definitively not locked...locked is bad), and keep good arm/body tension. Stance obviously plays a big part in everything as well, but since you're asking about grip I won't go into stance in this post.

Nice talking with you again too Sam. This is a hard one (giggity). I don't know if it's really possible to develop truly formidable shooting skills if the person isn't training on the edge of what they're capable of. I know that I was pretty uncomfortable with heights before I started climbing, now I can dangle from my fingertips 60 feet above the ground and not feel any sort of twinge in my gut. My first thought for the mellow person is they're going to have to learn how to force themselves to be uncomfortable. That is certainly much easier to do if you have the crazy gene.

Sure, I think that process still applies to what I'm saying as well. You can certainly slowly drill the process to encourage myelin wrapping, but I think ultimately you get more value out of the practice when you're working on the ragged edge. We know that just because you can do something slowly doesn't mean you can do that same thing quickly. It seems to me that you can't rely entirely on having efficient pathways. I don't know this for sure but my feeling is myelination happens regardless of the speed you are moving. You gotta be able to insulate that correct pathway while you're moving incredibly fast. I think it's real hard to maximize your practice without both.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you....this is what I think you're saying: You do a couple of reps fast (100%, what you're calling experimenting) then do a bunch of reps comfortable (90%, what you're calling practice). If that's what you are saying, there is a problem. That problem is that it's important to learn/refine the skill at the same pace that you are going when you make the mistake. If you're practicing your draws and you can do them mechanically correct 100% of the time at 1.2, but at 1.1 you start to make mistakes forming your grip. You can't really fix that by practicing at 1.2. You have to correct the mistake at the pace that causes the mistake. Some practice at match pace is certainly a good thing but to me that's more match prep stuff than everyday practice because it's more dependent on your mentality than your physical skill. If you're struggling with bringing practice pace to matches I could see doing more match pace practice. To me, the reason why Eric does all his practice here is because his skills are already good enough to win any match if he doesn't make any mistakes. My skills are not that good, so I still have to push and extend my comfort zone. I try to warm up (which may take 15-20 minutes) then as soon as I start the work sets of practice I'm always moving at a pace that causes mistakes in around half my reps. Maybe I'll do a rep a little slower if I egregiously make the same mistake a few times in a row. This is the only way I grow as a shooter. I'm not going to get any real value from 90% practice.

I believe this is completely inaccurate. You're not going to develop a higher skill ceiling by never shooting misses or deltas in practice. If you only practice at the pace that you can shoot A's at, you're never going to get any faster at shooting A's. That's great for Eric, but you gotta understand at this point in his shooting career he's not going to get much better at the raw skills than he already is. What he is practicing here is his match pace consistency. For everyone else that isn't one of the best shooters in history, you're going to need to push harder than that to get really good. This means you will sometimes (dare I say often) shoot D's and M's while practicing. You have to practice at a pace beyond your match pace if you want your match pace to improve. Remember that training stimulus MUST EXCEED whatever you may see or do on match day. Eric really doesn't need to improve his raw gun handling skills. If Eric shoots a mistake free match, it is practically a guarantee that he will win. If Joe C class shoots a mistake free match, he's still way back in the pack. This is the danger of using a top shooter's practice regime as a blueprint for your own. What Eric is trying to get out of his practice is very much different from what an average B class shooter needs to get out of his practice.