Jake Di Vita

Cha-Lee, it is surprising to me that someone that has put as much work into his game as you have would react to this stage by saying something like "bullshit you need luck to succeed here" rather than taking it as a challenge to address an area of your game that was exposed. This wasn't a problem of luck, this is something that people notoriously don't work on that bit them all in the ass. There's nothing wrong with having 1 stage out of 20 at the national championship be really hard.

What he said. B class dude executed and was rewarded for it. Percentage of stage within his class. Well done to him.

If that is how you see nationals then you are right. I don't agree with that interpretation of what nationals should be though. I'm good with that being the purpose of area matches but not nationals. I completely disagree that stage 9 did not test skill. It tested exactly what it looks like it tested. How good are you at shooting hard shots with one hand? Turns out a bunch of people aren't real good at it although I suspect there were a lot of freestyle misses shot on that stage as well.

We just have different match philosophies. Say a shooter has 6 misses on a hard stage and another shooter cleans the same hard stage with times pretty close to each other. The first shooter made 6 poor shots, he should be harshly penalized compared to the shooter that made none. There's nothing "superduper rewarded" about it. If you do way better on a stage than someone else you should get way more points than them. I don't believe luck plays much of a factor. If I bone a hard stage I don't complain about being unlucky. I go home and practice.

Nationals to me is about finding the best shooters in the country. There are a few important fundamental aspects this match needs to have. The most important is that it is as close to the same test for everyone as can be. Another aspect is nationals needs to be a valid shooting test to be able to find the best shooters which means it needs to test as many aspects of USPSA as possible. If we use your example of having all easy stages, then the only thing we find the best at is people shooting easy stages. Don't you think it is important for a nationals to expose weaknesses? That doesn't happen with all easy stages. Lucky hits on a "gotcha" stage? I remember a nationals many years ago with a 4 target spinner at about 15 yards that actually looked like an airplane prop when it was activated. You had no idea what you were shooting at. That's a "gotcha" to me and should not be at a nationals. Stage 9 at limited nationals was just a very difficult shooting challenge. Execution was rewarded and inability to execute was harshly punished, which I think is totally fair for a stage at the nationals. I don't subscribe to the notion that the people who succeeded on this stage did it out of luck and it's just a crap shoot. If you're able to pull it off when it matters, you earned the points you gain. If you can't pull it off, better luck next time you have a year to practice. I think they should have left it the same.

Nationals stages should include extremely difficult shooting tests. In my mind, the chief reason we have a nationals is to find the best shooters in the country. This is the one match per year that I really don't care if any shooters at all are upset because they find it too challenging. About the only way I'll agree that a stage at nationals is too difficult is if 100% of the competitors zero it. I think the fact that we are talking about one really hard stage being too much for a national championship is laughable.

In my experience weight does have an impact (even if very small) on felt recoil, but not really on recoil management until you're comparing guns of vastly different weight. Recoil management is almost entirely based on grip and stance.

I like the number of around 25k-50k dry fire reloads to start getting pretty good. Couple quick things: First is without a gun draw your fresh mag and get it to where the insertion point would be. At that point note the angle and orientation of your mag with the goal being to hold the gun at that exact angle when reloading. Second is you have to go faster than is comfortable but faster should not always be sloppier. Try to reload and have the mag not even touch the walls of the gun, then try to hold that precision as long as you can at full speed Most of the times when I botch a reload today it's because I flubbed the position of the mag in my hand when retrieving it from the belt. A critical aspect of reloading fast is getting to the new mag as fast as possible. Imagine your weak hand/arm as a wet towel that is snapping down to your belt. If you aren't flubbing something occasionally you're not pushing it hard enough.

I'd like you to run Front Sight next time you live fire practice as if it were your first stage at a match. Prep like you would at a match. Run the drill once and record your results. If you did this once a week or so for a couple months, I think we'd end up with an average that is pretty close to the 75% you just ran it in. The extra distance on the transitions also does actually make a big difference between a string of Front Sight and a half El Prez. From my perspective it's amusing that you're frustrated over a 75% run when you were C class just a month or two ago. I think you're making constant practice but it just takes time (yearS). I get wanting to be a GM yesterday, but as long as you're making progress don't let yourself be frustrated. I spent 2 years in B class, that was extremely frustrating because I just wasn't getting better. The skill required to never miss technical things when they really count is waaaaaay higher than most people think. I've gone 30 straight .7ish reloads in dry fire without a bobble more times than I can count, yet I can still go to a match and bobble 3 out of 4 reloads. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I don't think I've had truly perfect execution on any stage I've ever shot. It's definitely critical in our game to minimize mistakes. I would say that a potential source of the problem is that you're in a semi-relaxed state of mind when you dry fire. I don't want to be relaxed when I practice. I want to be running hot, wound up, focused, and pushing my boundaries. Then I try and take that same state of mind to the match except I replace pushing boundaries with just hitting each target in the middle as soon as I can while executing my plan. Fortunately you've made shot calling a priority to practice as nothing has as large of an effect on our overall performance as the ability to know where your bullets are going before they get there. Be harder on yourself in dry fire. Everyone lets themselves get away with a certain amount of poo. You're goal should be to be the guy that lets the least slide in dry fire.

A lot of good stuff has been said. One thing I didn't see is just seeing a lot of stages and ideally watching a lot of skilled people shoot those stages. Squad with the best shooters you can, ask questions and after you have done that enough times you'll have built a bank of experiences you can draw from to make decisions. That being said, a skilled shooter can shoot a stage half a dozen different ways and as long as they don't do anything glaringly wrong the runs will all be pretty close to each other in time. Execution will always be king. A lot of times the plan I end up using in the match is the most consistent plan, not the fastest.

So the main thing here is I'm guessing that you let things slide in dry fire that you just can't get away with using real bullets. To me, each dry fire session should be an evolution of your approximate actual skill level (when you start, cold) to the most savage hot stanky version of your skills that exists (after you've warmed up and made adjustments). If you're doing it right, you're noticing little things and making tiny adjustments on every single rep. An example would be drawing to a 15 foot light switch at full speed and noticing that your sights are pointed 2 inches left. You try to fix that in the next rep but this time you draw with the same speed and land .5 inch right and 1 inch low. Then next rep you adjust again at the same speed and maybe this time you're dead on and the shot practically breaks itself. The goal is to have the first glimpse of the sights be with them in the perfect position for the shot with no adjustment. The same thing goes for reloading. It isn't enough to have a rotational error on the fresh mag but bang the mag in there. I want to move at full tilt and feel like the mag doesn't even touch the sides of the gun until it clicks into place. You can apply this to all aspects of shooting. Every transition that lands off the target point should be noticed and accounted for. Try to do as many "perfect" reps as you can at full speed. Maybe you do a dry fire session and do nothing perfect, that's fine...the pursuit of it is going to make you improve. Ultimately as you become a better shooter you'll see less of a difference between live fire and dry fire. I would also recommend doing more dry fire in between live fire drills if you have the time.

Good lord...What kind of question is this? I wonder if you put any effort at all into thinking about the solution to this question before posting it. Surrender draw and transitions is almost the entirety of steel challenge. Hell, you can just get real wild and set up the actual stages in practice if for some reason you can't figure out a different way to practice drawing to a target or transitioning to targets.

Locking joints is really ineffective for absorbing energy. Straight is good, locked is not. Canting the gun is personal preference. It's entirely acceptable to just shift the position of the gun closer to the dominant eye without canting. This isn't really a trigger finger issue, this is a grip issue. It's not that using less trigger finger makes you control recoil better, you are just positioning the gun a bit better in your hand and the nature of that position reduces how much finger you have on the trigger. Ultimately a lot of trigger finger or a little trigger finger by itself doesn't make any difference. Pressing the trigger as quickly as possible while keeping the gun still is good advice. I think you need to work far more difficult targets than just out to 7 yards though.

I like the advice of pulling the trigger much harder than needed in dry fire and forcing yourself to keep the gun in the right position with less than perfect trigger control. Pulling the trigger harder closer simulates what you'll be doing in the match.

It's not yet translating to matches because it takes a lot of time for practice to turn into measurable on demand improvement. I would counsel you to keep treating local matches like they are major matches and just stay the course with practicing on the edge of your ability. We've identified drills to work on the particular problems you are having. Have patience and trust that your hard work will pay off.

I think you're describing a different problem from what he has. He talked about being aimed at the target but essentially hesitating before pulling the trigger. To me, this is closer to an issue of recognizing when he has an acceptable sight picture. The way I would address this is to practice entering position and breaking the shot at the earliest possible instant, which is as soon as your trailing foot leaves the ground and you are considered within the fault lines. You'll probably be throwing some cruddy hits on target when you start pushing this, that is fine as long as you are calling the shot. Don't slow down. You'll be able to refine that accuracy at speed if you keep digging at it.

That isn't the point. The point is to become as good at shooting as possible. How many GMs do you think are aiming off target when shooting weakhand? My guess would be 0. You also might sing a different tune if your lack of ability to shoot weakhand cost you the win at an Area match or nationals. If your friends are crunching shots, they are not executing the shots correctly. A "fair degree of consistency" simply isn't good enough to take to matches you are trying to win that actually have good competition. It's not like you need to devote the lion's share of your practice to weakhand to get better at it. Consistently devoting 10 minutes a day to weakhand only shooting is likely enough by itself to make you better at it. If you have poor ability to shoot weakhand, that IS low hanging fruit. "Grade" is not my goal. Winning is my goal. You won't be able to win with gaping holes in your game. Not being able to execute shots correctly with only one hand is a gaping hole in your gun handling ability. Well it's extremely unlikely they are going to be able to do that the same 10 times in a row. It's even more unlikely they will execute the same way under the pressure of a match. I'd tell them to devote some time to shoring it up. If a right handed shooter is shooting weak hand only on a target with a no shoot on the left side, you are proposing aiming at the no shoot to hit the target. I think that is absolute madness and it's 100% going to bite them in the ass eventually. That doesn't mean anything when it comes to doing it when it counts on demand. The guy is C class because that is what his level of ability is. He is clearly having issues with keeping the gun on target as the shot fires. The solution you have suggested is like putting a bandaid on a broken leg. You are treating the symptom, I am treating the cause. What? A difference in vision is not what is moving the gun off the target. I don't even know where you are pulling that out of. Are you trying to tell me that people with certain kinds of vision can't hit point of aim? I refuse to subscribe to such an idea. In regards to "if there's an easy fix", I'll spoil it for you. There isn't. There's no pill you can take, there's nothing you can buy, it just requires consistent hard work. If you don't want to put that work in, that's totally cool, you'll just be stuck at a plateau until you change your approach. That "fundamental issue in trigger control" you are speaking of is exactly the problem. The difference is, you feel like that only matters when shooting freestyle, I think it matters in all aspects of shooting. If your goal is to be the best shooter you can be, ALL fundamental problems need to be addressed. I tend to waste people on stages that have SHO or WHO shooting because I practice it and most people like yourself don't want to. I encourage all my competition to use the line of thinking you are using.

Dear God not this. If you are crunching the poo out of shots weak hand, the answer is not to adjust your windage. The answer is to practice and get better at shooting weakhand. The last thing in the world you want is to aim in a place where if you execute the shot correctly, you will be penalized for it.

I do too. And it hurts my heart. I wasted probably 5 years of my life in that rut. Slow does not mean accurate and fast does not mean inaccurate. I've lost 14+ hit factor stages by shooting a couple C's where someone else cleaned alphas more than once. Shooting all alphas does not mean you went too slow. Missing the target entirely when aiming for the A zone is very unlikely, if a shooter finds themselves getting "unlucky" frequently, it isn't luck that is the problem. If someone is having trouble moving up because they occasionally tank classifiers just enough to bring their percentage down, I'd call that the classification system working as intended. The answer should not be to shoot more recklessly so your score is either really good for you or too low to be used. The answer is keep practicing and when you're good enough, you'll be a higher class. Absolutely. The problem is that "I'm plenty fast enough that a mike or a NS will not tank the classifier." shows a state of mind that is a long way from shot calling. In my opinion, the words slow or fast really have no place in a match or in determining match strategy. Matches are about going out there and shooting each round at the earliest point that you know you are aiming the target. Get to a target as soon as you can, hit it, get to the next target as soon as you can, hit it, repeat until finished. The speed at which all this happens is determined by your skill. The last thing you want to do in a match is trap yourself into either going slow or fast because both of those choices suck. Having a mike "now and then" is textbook inconsistency and while this is excellent in practice, that philosophy in matches will only hold you back in the long term. Not caring about classification is probably one of the most important things for a shooter to get out of their own way.

This hurts my heart.

It takes more than a week even if you're under 40 and do everything perfectly. Do it for at least a month, then take an audit of how you look, feel, and perform. Consistency is the key to life.

I don't really consider stretching to be warming up, even though stretching is certainly good to do it just isn't enough by itself. Only stretching before trying to move explosively is not a good prep for moving explosively. Similarly, only stretching before trying to shoot quickly and accurately is also not good prep. A good warm up is going to be centered around prepping for the activities that we are doing. In an ideal world, my warm up for a shooting match would be something like 50 burpees, 10 minutes of dry fire, and 150 rounds of live fire. The burpees are to get my heart rate up and get blood flowing through my legs and arms, the dry fire is to get my hands warm and it's a controlled environment for everything I'm about to do in the match, and the live fire would be to manage recoil, prepare my eyes for reading the sights, and to further prepare my hands for match pace shooting. Since I normally don't have the ability to live fire before the match, I do more dry fire. My warm up for a shooting match is not the same as my warm up for a 1rm clean and jerk which isn't the same as my warm up for running 5 miles.

I do tons of draws and reloads because it's important that they're consistent. The goal is having my hand position perfect every single time from any start position (including draws to weakhand, strong hand only, and unloaded draws from any start position). I've been dry firing a long time and I still haven't gotten there, you can imagine how much training is involved when you look at the variables you can add to the draw. I think an extremely fast and refined draw/reload is a sign of exceptional gun handling skills. Once you do have that fast refined draw you may not practice it as much, but you certainly can't just stop practicing it. Improve weaknesses and bolster strengths. Depending on the situation, the improvement in time can be well in excess of .3 seconds. Generally the more difficult the draw target is the more you will save, but there is something to be said about being able to rip .7 draws on demand on appropriate targets in a match. Regardless even if the improvement only is .3 seconds, I want that .3 seconds. I've lost more than one match by a tenth of a point. Obviously if you are injuring yourself something needs to change about your approach.

No problem. You primarily need to snap your eyes to the next target and drive your gun hard to it and run more aggressively.

It isn't that simple though. The difference between a fast split and a slow split can be a whole lot more than a tenth, especially on difficult targets. I also think he's losing between .2 and .7 on every single transition. 10 of those in a stage and you're losing between 2 and 7 seconds. Which is probably close to what he is tending to lose in movement as well. Ok let's get in further detail here. Instead of watching the Lions try to choke another game away, I just went through and gave a bit of an analysis to every shot that this match had. This is going to be long, and Robert, it might feel like I'm jumping on your back a bit, but I'm just trying to give an objective criticism here on where I see you losing time. The TLDR is you are certainly losing time in your movement from position to position, but I think you're losing far more time in general shooting with transitions being the primary place hurting you. Stage 1: Right off the bat the first transition to the close target after the draw target is probably .25 slower than it should be. The long transition off to the right is closer to .5 slow, then the transition back isn't too bad (other than a different engagement order probably would have resulted in a faster time from far less gun movement). The first slow walk over is definitely close to 2 seconds slow than it needs to be. Presentation to his first target from the second position is definitely too hesitant for a full target at around 10 yards...probably .25 slow here. Transition to the partial isn't too bad, but notice the significantly longer split. When he transitions to the first head box, in addition to the general movement being a little slow notice how the gun bounces a bit. This transition probably cost .4-.5. Same story but worse with the 2nd head box that he had to search for a bit, this one was around a second. Moving to his third position didn't cost him too much time as he got the reload done pretty much just as his feet were getting in place. With a better reload, this probably would have cost him a second. In a perfect world I would have liked to see him take all 3 poppers before the drop turner, but I'm not terribly upset with the target engagement order if he wasn't confident doing it the ideal way. Transitions for the steel aren't bad. Transition after the steel to the open target was definitely awkward. Note the gun dismounting, this was probably .5. After the reload, next two targets are shot at the same pace even though one is mostly obscured and the other is full. Add on another .5 with the split and transition of the 2nd target here. Then the window finish, slightly slow transition and a long pickup shot adds about 1.5 to his score. On this first stage the walking certainly hurt, but I think the actual shooting hurt much more. He was 7 seconds slow of the stage winner in his division, I think we can easily find that 7 seconds in what was listed. Stage 2: Draw is a bit on the slow side, but I think the transition to the popper through the port and the transition to the paper after hurt a lot. Probably lost close to 1.5 seconds on those 2 transitions. Also note how the gun bobs significantly when transitioned to the first of 2 targets on the left. This is a recurring theme we are seeing and is usually a symptom of not snapping your eyes to the next target ahead of the gun. The movement to his 2nd shooting position is certainly way slower than it needs to be. I almost think he needs to do some shuttle sprints or even something like the nfl combine cone drill to get his feet moving faster. I think he is losing close to 2 seconds in this run. Then on the 3 targets vertically stacked we notice a long pause on each transition. These targets are close enough together where it should sound like a bill drill. I think he's losing close to a second on this array. Moving to the 3rd position doesn't look like it cost him a ton. Was just enough time for the reload. With a faster reload he may have been .5ish slow here. Next transition to the triple target with the no shoot was very hesitant. Probably over a second lost here. Shooting pace slowed way down, which is understandable for the risk of the shots, I think it was still a bit slower than he needed to go though. (we see the gun bouncing on transition here too) Ditto on this position. Didn't cost much because of reload speed, with a better reload maybe as much as a second lost here. Through the port, the steel to steel transition was probably .3 slow (with another gun bounce). Transition to the first swinger wasn't bad, maybe .2 slow, but the transition to the other swinger felt like an eternity. Gotta be close to 1.5 seconds here. 8 seconds slower than stage winner on this one, most of it was shooting pace for sure. Stage 3 Right out of the gate here we have a problem with the unloaded start. This ended up costing around 3 seconds in the draw and 2 seconds in the standing reload. The transitions with the close open targets hurt a bit as well costing maybe a second between all of them. That's 6 seconds slow in the first position that had nothing at all to do with movement. Same story with moving to the first position. It is definitely a little slow, but his reload pace makes it so it didn't hurt too bad. Probably down 2 seconds with a better reload. Split on the head shot is a bit slow, probably .25 slower than I'd like it. Transition to the 3 targets in the window we're probably losing at least a second here probably closer to 1.5, especially with the last hesitated transition on the far left target. Then we have a walk over closer to the head shot target for a make up, this probably cost 3 seconds or so. After the reload he hits the duck in front of him, looks to be a bit unsure of what to do next, then moves to the target deep inside the port. Probably lost a second here as well in the movement. Transition to the far target probably .3 slow and close to the same on the splits. Final position, walking to it probably cost another second and a half. Then we have a slow head shot split, an ok transition to the first piece of steel, but then some pick up shots that cost a half second each not including the standing reload they cause. Probably 5 seconds lost in shooting in this last position. 9 seconds behind stage winner in this stage, most of that is just in the first position. Definitely think shooting/gun handling was a bigger problem than movement in this stage. Stage 4: Pretty good unloaded start here (although it seems like he's riding the slide forward with his hand, which could have caused the problem on the last stage....let the spring do it's job after you get the slide to the rear most position). Splits and transitions here are extremely solid for a C class shooter. Makes me wonder why you weren't shooting like that the rest of the match. Reload certainly hurts a bit, but overall very solid stage, and a stage win for him. Stage 5: Draw was a bit slow for me. Note how his transition to the 3rd target was about the same pace as the transition to the 2nd target, but the 3rd target was significantly easier. Probably .3 lost here. Reload certainly costs some time since he is already in the shooting position for the next targets. Reload was probably somewhere around 2 seconds. Transitions on the upper level targets aren't too bad, but once again the lower more open target is a bit slower with a gun bounce. .3ish again. The three targets through the port are just a bit on the slow side. Not bad with the awkwardness of the port and orientation of the targets. First low target engagement coming into the port looks good, but the transition after it was full of uncertainty. Same with the transition down to the next head box. Probably close to a second lost here just in transitions. Then he finishes with the plate rack. Transitions are probably a tenth or two on the slow side but doesn't upset me much since he went 1 for 1 on them. He got 2nd on this stage about 7 seconds behind the winner. Edit: Holy crap this was long. And 2nd holy crap, the Lions might have won in clutch time.