Jake Di Vita

Is this a feeling or have you tested this on the timer? I don't experience anything like that. In fact, I've found the opposite as you. The harder I squeeze the faster my sights return to the target. I think the benefit is magnified as the target gets tougher and the splits get longer. A 10% improvement on a .15 split is obviously not as significant as a 10% improvement on a .40 split. Targets beyond 15 yards are one of the largest areas the pros separate from the pack.

The only place I disagree is I don't think that there is anyplace where it matters more than anyplace else. The fundamentals are the same regardless of the difficulty of the target you're shooting at. Having different grip pressure for longer shots is a similar mistake to slowing down the motion of your draw on a far target. If it matters up close, it matters for everything. I'm a big believer in treating every shot the same. The problem with going by feel is the feedback isn't as reliable as it seems like it should be. I've always felt if I'm doing it right I'll know exactly how well my stage went at unload and show clear. There are lots of shooters that effectively score their run real time as it's going on, hits and time. They aren't trying to it's just a product of using the most reliable feedback we have available which in the case of shooting is our vision. Ask yourself what benefit you get by squeezing harder "where it matters more" and then ask yourself why you don't want that benefit on the other targets?

The small difference that you saw in muzzle rise means a lot to me. I've lost more matches than I care to remember by less than a point. If you're trying to win every tiny little bit matters. Even if it is only .01 seconds every other per split, over the course of a match like nationals, you've lost a second or more. That's a simple example and I think there are more advantages to it than that, but even that alone is more than enough to make a difference. I'm not saying that it's impossible to shoot well while relaxed, but I don't believe you'll ever maximize your abilities like that. I'm a performance whore, I want every little bit I can get. I try to pay special attention to the fundamentals, I want to do the really common simple stuff better than anyone else and I want the people I teach to strive for that as well. I think that's the best foundation to build from, so naturally that is what I'm going to coach. Yeah, body wide my tension is not as firm as my grip, but I'm still very tight and integrated. I'm gripping the gun at probably 80% of max and I'm squeezing the rest of my body probably somewhere around 50% of max. I'm intentionally not relaxed. There's more to it than this but to make a long story short, the more relaxed someone is the more upright they'll tend to be and when they're upright and relaxed recoil tends to push them around. If I see shoulders or torso moving at all during recoil, I think that's a problem. Maybe you're a bigger guy and you can get away with being less active, but I can't operate under the assumption that being a bit softer will work for everyone when I know being firm is what the best in the world do.

Aggressive? I don't know where you get that from. I'm telling you what I think, I'm not invested in any way with what you do. I'm saying the same thing to you as I would to anyone else that made a similar claim. It's not like I'm mad at you, I don't think you're stupid. I just don't agree with you and I'm telling you why so we can have a discussion. What is "over tense and stiff" to you? To me that means squeezing so hard you can't stop trembling. If that's what you mean then yes I agree, I want to be just short of that in how hard I squeeze.

Mechanical advantage definitely has something to do with it. The entire purpose of your grip and stance is to give you as much of a mechanical advantage as possible. That being said, I could set up a 10 year old in a perfect grip and stance and watch him not be able to manage recoil at all. Strength alone is useless and technique alone is useless. When you combine them though you get productive application of force. I agree that the most important thing is getting the sights back on target quickly...the difference is I think more properly applied pressure aids this. I'm not sure I believe that there is no difference between you squeezing hard and light. What I'd like to see is a high frame rate video slowed down to 1/10th speed or so of bill drills with a hammer grip and then a very firm grip. Anything short of that and I don't think there is really enough information to tell. It'd be good to see how the group of 6 looks with each level of grip pressure as well. Also, If you did the test shooting minor you may experience different results with major. Yes I believe being relaxed is less than ideal. I'll stay short of calling it wrong because there are certainly people that find some success with it, but there's nothing that says they wouldn't perform better if they were less relaxed. The relaxed thing is certainly well spread in the shooting community but in my experience having my body relaxed is the last thing in the world I want when I'm doing anything athletic.

I'd like to see that comparison video. Were you using a fast enough camera to actually see the recoil in action? It sounds like you're trying to say that you don't think grip pressure has any impact on recoil management. I think you're going to have a hard time finding good shooters that agree with you. Conserving energy is not something I am trying to do while shooting a stage. As far as tremors from gripping too hard, improving grip strength will help substantially with that since you won't have to squeeze with the same intensity to produce the force you're looking for.

Same issue here though. Correlation =/= causation. Having great trigger control doesn't mean you won't move the gun off target before the bullet leaves the barrel. Comparatively, having poor trigger control doesn't mean you will move the gun off target before the bullet leaves the barrel. I yank the crap out of my trigger on all but the most difficult of shots and don't have a problem at all with accuracy because I do it without moving the gun. On partials and plates beyond 25 yards or so, I'll start being a little more precise with my trigger manipulation. It's entirely possible to have a crappy grip and a crappy trigger pull and still hit what you want to hit. There are lots of people that can flip a gun upside down and shoot it accurately with their pinkie. I think we'd both agree shooting like that gives you less than ideal grip and trigger manipulation. So if it's possible to shoot accurately like that the logical extension is neither of those things are actual requirements for hitting the target. The only requirement for accuracy is holding the gun on target until the bullet is gone. I've always felt for the type of shooting most of us here do (uspsa) that great trigger control is overrated and grip matters more for getting the gun back on target and the speed of your follow up shots than anything else.

I don't think this is actually true. Your grip primarily effects recoil management, not shot placement. Shot placement is entirely dependent on keeping the gun still until the bullet has left the barrel. This is possible whether your grip is terrible or great. I see people all the time who have a crappy grip on the gun that still shoot accurately.

Well gripping the gun very hard is I think very clearly the best approach, so much so that it I don't think it's really up for debate anymore. People say grip the gun until it hurts because most of the time if I tell someone just to squeeze hard they won't put nearly enough into it. Squeeze the gun til it hurts is another way of saying squeeze harder than you think is necessary. If for some reason (age, injury, etc) you cannot grip the gun hard, then you obviously have to do what you're capable of. When you're talking about using all of the body to manage recoil, I completely agree and I recommend similar methods to everyone whether they possess the capability to squeeze the gun hard or not. The problem is you could set 95% of your body up perfectly for recoil management, but if your hands are too loose to transfer the stability of your body into the gun you won't really reap much of the reward of good body position.

I turn maybe about 45 degrees putting the shoulder of the arm that is shooting closer to the target than the shoulder of the unused arm.

By the time I unload and show clear I have a really good idea of how I performed on the stage. Be hard on yourself even for tiny tenth of a second mistakes. Get video and analyze the hell out of it. One thing I also like to do is write down every mistake I make on every stage of a match. After doing that for a month or two you'll start to see patterns of your problem areas. This becomes more important as you get better because you'll eventually get to the point where you're winning stages in spite of making mistakes. When this happens you'll need a different method of judging your performance that isn't based on your match score. I get where you're coming from with the percentage thing, but I think judging performance based on any derivation of classification is less than ideal.

I tend to quarter my body off a bit when shooting one handed so the line of force goes closer to the center of my body, then I lean into the gun a lot more than I do when shooting freestyle. Make sure you're still savagely squeezing the gun with only the one hand. I just move the gun so it's in front of the correct eye. Nothing wrong with canting except you'll probably have to put a bit more work into it to manage the recoil properly from a slightly goofy orientation. You'll never really develop your one handed abilities to have the same feeling as freestyle shooting as one hand will obviously never provide as much stability as two hands. That being said, you can still get pretty damn good with one hand.

It takes more than a couple months to permanently change your technique if the change is substantial. Make sure you make a conscious concerted effort on every rep of live fire practice to squeeze the gun properly. Conscious competence comes before subconscious competence. Once you're sure you're holding the gun right for all dry fire and live fire practice, do that for a straight year. Then after a full year of burning the right habits in re-evaluate how well the skill has transferred to matches.

Makes me think you let yourself get away with too much when you practice reloads with a magwell. Should always try to reload without touching the magwell.

Ok, I started with shooting an 8 and had a similar experience as you with real tough shots, but that went away when I went to a smaller dot (I'm also using a 6 now but I'm thinkin about going back down to 4). If that's what's workin for you, by all means keep doing it. You may find you don't need to do it as much in the future. I think generally speaking the fewer times you have to focus on things in a stage the better.

Fair enough. What size dot are you using?

no shit. What is it about focusing on the dot that you think gives you better hits?

Why?

*yawn whatever you say chief

Yeah I guess I don't get it because I just re-read this thread and still missed where he was talking about his focal point while shooting? Maybe you can be a bro and show me. Even if he did say that, my technique and thoughts have changed significantly between hitting gm over 10 years ago and today. The most skilled and experienced open shooters that I know focus on the target.

As does the instructor in me...I always want to help (which is why I have like 15 posts in this thread lol). I've been teaching people how to lift and how to shoot for half my life now. Sometimes there are just people that you can't get through to no matter what you say. Fortunately it doesn't happen often.

Ya the people that talk about the slow at close range are struggling to find a satisfactory explanation too, I'm yet to hear one that survives any amount of scrutiny. Just one of the many often repeated myths of shooting.

Ya, in theory that's correct. Practically, I notice the dot is fuzzier when I'm focusing on the target but the dot usually covers such a small area of the target that the fuzziness doesn't matter. Sure, that works for me.

Hmm...Most of the GMs I've talked to have said they focus on the target and superimpose the dot. I do the same. I'm not sure how you aren't talking about focal distance, since most of the time the glass of the scope and the target do require different focal points to be crisp (part of the benefit of the dot is it doesn't have to be focused on to call shots easily). The analogy of the mouse pointer doesn't make sense to me because the mouse pointer and the rest of the monitor are at the same distance, unlike the target and the scope.

It really isn't. I literally don't even notice the stuff you're saying distracts you... That's fine though...if that's what you're determined to believe, go for it.