Jake Di Vita

I didn't say anyone suggested that. I said the vast majority of my practice is not going to be slow. My. And I should have added that the vast majority of my practice is not going to be slower than match pace. What I'm saying is shooting slow does not transfer to USPSA except in the circumstances that you can't execute the skill regardless of the speed. In those circumstances, learn the skill and as soon as it is learned, speed up. I think the slowest that I will shoot during "accuracy-focused" group shooting is maybe 1 second per shot. Nothing slower really applies in USPSA for me. Those things that you focus on in your few minutes of "accuracy-focused" shooting should be focused on during all shooting regardless. Doing something slow is not and never will be equal to doing something fast. Just because you can call shots in slow fire, doesn't mean you can call them at bill drill speed. What improvements did you notice? Did it just feel better or do you have actual evidence that this made your match scores better? If you can't shoot accurately to save your life under any circumstances, sure do some accuracy drills without time pressure. If you can shoot accurately with no time pressure but the wheels start falling off when you go a little faster, that is where you should be practicing - the point at which the wheels start to fall off. That is what threshold training is.

You have to be able to make tight shots. Once you are able to make them under ideal circumstances, they need to be trained under pressure of time if you want those skills to translate to USPSA. So yeah, if you can't hit something given infinite time, you definitely can't hit that same thing in a match. If you can hit something given infinite time, that still doesn't mean you can hit the same thing in a match at speed. A very important concept that a lot of people miss is that your training stimulus must exceed whatever you could see on game day. We know hitting the targets at a high rate of speed is what makes you successful in USPSA, our practice has to exceed anything that we try in a match, so the vast majority of my practice is not going to be slow. I agree with what Nimitz said assuming the ability to do it without time pressure exists. Once you have that, it's time for some threshold training.

I know for a fact that I can shoot pretty consistently based on index. A few years ago I ran 100 draws to a popper at 10 yards with my eyes closed and I hit 93 of them. I've also done a lot of eyes closed bill drills and blake drills trying to really feel what is going on with the gun and posted some pretty decent scores. It is certainly possible to shoot based off index and not sight and hit what you want to. I do that all the time in matches (not eyes closed, but definitely not on the sights) at 5 yards and in, and for this year over about 15 matches I averaged around 95% points.

This stuff really isn't very pertinent to recoil control, but since we're there... All that matters is that you have enough information to be able to call your shot. It does not matter which sense you get that information from. Timing, like it or not, plays a factor in most people's shooting. The degree that it plays is dependent on a whole lot of variables. To say it is always bad or nonsense is too strong. As with pretty much everything, the reality is more grey than black or white. Also, using the reasoning of "if it's a duck I call it a duck" to justify insulting people who disagree with you on something subjective is pretty weak.

Pretty sure its in C-ville again.

Well, your holster is always in the same place (or at least it should be) and people usually rest their forearm on the magwell as a point of reference. With all the draws we do, getting the gun out of the holster probably unintentionally becomes the thing we practice more than anything so you don't really need to look when establishing a grip out of the holster (although there was a pretty good M class shooter around me who did that on every stage when I was B class, so I have seen that lol). If you're doing a table draw, I guarantee (at least I hope) you look at the gun because you don't have those aforementioned points of reference. I'm surprised you don't see anyone struggle with their weakhand grip after transferring, I've made all kinds of mistakes. Next time you dry fire, take the gun with your strong hand and put it in the most ideal position you can in your weak hand with no time pressure. Then do 10 or so draw transfers under time pressure and see if all 10 are as good as the first one you placed perfectly. Ultimately we are in the business of minimizing mistakes. Using your eyes for as many things as possible does a lot towards that end.

I think in general the less the gun moves the better. Sure more strength is almost never bad, it's just a matter of if the time used for that will achieve better results if focused elsewhere. If you are very weak then yes you probably should make that a main focus and you will reap large benefits from it, but if you already are reasonably strong and have good control over the gun, follow that triage concept and eliminate the thing giving you the biggest issue.

I mean practice *until* the action is subconscious, and doesn't require my attention. In a match, there's quite alot of stuff that I don't pay any conscious attention to. It seems like my subconscious is perfectly capable of drawing, reloading, moving to and fro, etc... These things all require attention during practice to some extent, but that's the whole point of practice to me; to repeat correctly at speed until the whole process becomes a programmed unit, and I can just send a message to perform the entire process instead of the various individual parts of it. For example, in drawing to difficult targets, I seem to have the best results when I simply focus on the target, and place my attention where the sights are going to be, and start picking them up as early as possible. The draw happens on its own, with no thought or attention to the details on my part. It happens because I practiced it alot, sometimes paying particular attention to parts of the process. Not really just a shooting thing either. I find the same thing for every endeavour I try to get good at. If I need to pop the front wheel of my motorcycle up in the air to climb a ledge, I don't really pay any attention to anything except the goal beyond the ledge. My subconscious knows how to pull in the clutch, shift weight back, rev the engine, pop the clutch out long enough to loft the wheel, and then pull the clatch back in and ease of the gas to shift weight forward so that the rear wheel will glide up the obstacle instead of deflecting. That process would become more difficult and time-consuming if I had to actually pay any attention to anything except the goal, but it all happens in a fraction of a second on the trail, without conscious thought. None of this is intended to be an argument against what you are saying, btw. Maybe just a different way of looking at it. I'm quite certain that if I practice watching the gun when switching hands, that the 'watching' will also become part of the subconscious process like it is with reloads. I'll have to try it out for a bit and see if it seems helpful. I think attention can be directed without taking control of the action from your subconscious. For me the practice is to refine what I'm doing with the intent of maximizing economy of motion. I don't look at it as I have programmed this skill and can now hit play whenever, I look at it like I have made this motion as efficient as I can and that makes it easier for my subconscious to execute it with the aid of my attention. I get what you're saying about not thinking your way through it and I totally agree. I have found the same thing when drawing to difficult targets. I do that for pretty much all draws though. While our action is the same I feel the attention to the details is what enables me to take that action effectively and consistently. I'm not thinking my way through it, I'm just trying to provide my subconscious with as much information as I can to complete the task. Most of my attention needs to be on where the sights are going to be, but I still have the awareness of where everything is through feel until I'm extending the gun. Ultimately I think we are talking about the same thing but using the words differently. Good stuff.

I completely agree. From the perspective of strength, I think the weaker you are the more important it is and the diminishing returns come quickly after a certain point. It's hard to say definitively what point that is, but you certainly don't need to be the Hulk. There is absolutely a difference between strength and productive application of force. Technique is what bridges the two. Shooting open it was very easy to become lazy behind the gun. I think that is usually a larger culprit of the problems that come from weakness than actual strength. If actual strength is the problem, it usually jumps out at you in a glaring way.

Well, I can see practicing it with other means of attention. Like for example I've screwed around doing reloads, draws, and transitions with my eyes closed several times, but it's usually because I'm trying to find awareness from a different perspective. Where do you feel the value is in practicing something without paying attention to it? I can't think of many circumstances in the frame of uspsa competition where I'd be forced to not pay attention to an action I take with the gun. I think a significant concept here is that attention can be directed independently of vision, but vision is usually our most reliable source of feedback.

wait, what? Are you saying you look at the gun/hand instead of at the targets? For sure I get more consistency with reloads when I look at the magwell, but I've never thought about doing that with my weak hand draw. I practice drawing to WHO a couple times a week, so it seems to run pretty smoothly without paying any attention to the details. Yeah absolutely. I have no reason to look at the targets until I am engaging them, I know where they are from all the visualization. I want to direct as much attention as possible to every specific action I'm taking. Not paying attention to the details is likely to bite you in the long run. You also might not be being hard enough on yourself on the quality of your weakhand grip. Hard to say from here obviously.

I'm with Tim on this... I think it is important to keep as many things the same as possible. If I can avoid adding a special technique for a certain skill I'm probably going to. For me it is pretty much: draw gun, make room to put my weak hand on gun (I hold the gun with my strong hand fingers in normal position and have thumb/base of hand off), wipe gun on weakhand down and back to try and make sure I get as high on the grip as I can. Absolutely make sure you are driving the action with your vision. Although in my case, I've found more success focusing on my weakhand than the gun. That being said, I think the most important thing is just that you are focusing on something in the action. Problems happen when we inexplicably stop paying attention to what we're doing. Which happens more often than I'd like to admit. For what it's worth, it took me a LOT of work before it felt smooth, but that's true for most things.

Shot placement, movement, etc I would include in the "if you take two shooters of equal skill level" since I would consider those skills. I should have worded myself differently. What I should have said is with equal skill the stronger shooter will tend to score higher. I say this because assuming equal skill and technique, the stronger shooter will control recoil better and have a larger buffer for how much non-ideal shooting positions affect them. Trust me, I know there is more to winning matches than grip strength. That isn't what I was saying at all. The thread is about recoil control afterall - only one of the many things required to be successful in this sport.

There are a lot of local matches where the stages are set up in a way that there isn't much room to separate yourself. From my own experience at locals I've had guys place in the upper 90% of me and be 30% or more behind at a major. While that's cool she did that, let's not get carried away from a tiny sample size. It obviously isn't all strength, but too little strength can clearly be a gigantic disadvantage. I would also say if you take two shooters of equal skill level, the stronger one is probably going to win. I like the captains of crush, but rock climbing once or twice a week got my hands way stronger than anything else I've ever done.

That's correct. My elbows are mostly in and I'm rotating the top (as viewed from being aimed on target) of my hands outward away from each other. That being said, I'm still creating a lot of crushing force with my hand, so it isn't like my grip seperates. It's just a moderate amount of external rotational force to create the tension I'm looking for in my arms and shoulders. Maybe 25% as hard as I could. Just sitting here messing with it, I suppose it's possible to apply inward pressure with my hands and keep my shoulders in position from my elbows. Maybe we can get the best of both worlds. I'm going to play with it for a while.

It's funny because I do the exact opposite rotation as what Bob does. I try to avoid setting my shoulder up internally rotated in flexion, for a similar reason that you wouldn't want your shoulder in that position while benching or pressing. I'm a big proponent of adopting the position that gives me the most bio-mechanical stability and the undeniable most stable position for the shoulder in all ranges of flexion is external rotation. I don't think it is reasonable for you to unequivocally state that you "WILL sacrifice a certain amount of control" by doing it any other way. It's been a long time since I've spoken with Bob but I've always liked the guy and his way of doing things clearly works well for him, but I'm certainly not willing to say it's the best way just because he wins with it - especially for people that don't put in even 5% of the work that Bob does into his game. Most people don't understand how many thousands of hours he has put into practicing with his way of doing it. I'd bet that has a lot more to do with his success than this particular mechanic of his grip.

As far as tense vs. relaxed, I find the only place relaxation has a role in the type of shooting we do is being mentally relaxed. Being mentally relaxed really lets my vision drive my shooting. I don't believe physical relaxation has much of a place in the action portion of athletics including shooting. About the only time my body is completely relaxed is when I'm sleeping. I try to always carry at least 10% tightness in my body (enough tension to where someone could walk up and belly check me and I'm not going to double over) even when walking around or sitting down. That percentage goes up significantly if I have to do something athletic. I don't focus on stiffening my hand into the back strap but I think it happens as a consequence of the other things I do with my grip. I also try to get the inside corner of my strong hand palm (opposite of thumb directly down from pinky) on the backstrap which could be where that backstrap tension comes from. I don't understand what you are saying here. Got a couple pictures of your grip/arm position so I can see what you're trying to describe?

I think it is utterly ridiculous to adjust your sights to where you usually miss towards. I never want to set myself up to where if I execute the shot correctly I'm going to miss. Fix the marksmanship issues, don't rely on a crutch. If your misses get more pronounced as you go faster, there are definite mechanical issues to sort out. Obviously this isn't something that can be diagnosed online but it's going to boil down to something is causing the gun to move from where you want the round to go before the bullet exits the barrel. Perfect trigger control is not required to shoot accurately - the only thing that needs to happen to make a shot accurate is the barrel has to be pointing at your target until the bullet leaves the gun. It sounds like it's time to shoot at a berm with all of your attention towards the action of your wrists hands and fingers. Your goal is to observe through feel and sight what is happening to make the sights dip before the bullet is out of the barrel and then to stop doing it. It's going to take time, work, and maybe help from others but it is totally fixable. In my experience when the problem gets worse as I go faster, the cause is usually somewhere in my grip or stance.

For the most part the support side arm is always going to be a little more extended than the strong side arm if only for the reason that your support side hand is further forward than your strong side hand. I think the more you cam your wrist forward the straighter that elbow tends to be. I haven't read the thread, but my primary goal for recoil control is to direct as much of the energy from recoil as I can into the ground. It starts with the grip where I want to ensure I get as much energy as I can going through my arms instead of lifting the muzzle. Like most, the majority of my grip pressure is coming from my support hand, I'd estimate I'm somewhere around 75% of maximum tension. I use a thumb rest most of the time so instead of locking my wrist forward I focus on applying a good amount downward pressure through my thumb from my wrist. I'm going to be tight from hands through my arms, shoulders, torso, and legs. Relaxed musculature does not transfer energy very well at all, the best way to describe my body tension is to be like a cobra flexing your cobra hood. I want a good portion of my weight shifted forward to make the line of energy transfer a little more through that arms shoulders torso legs line rather than directly out the back of my shoulders. Obviously the more upright you are the more your shoulders will move during recoil which is a variable I try very hard to eliminate. Don't let the gun push you around. I like trying to create external rotation in my shoulders so my elbows are staying mostly in and I'm applying pressure (not a ton) towards pulling my hands apart. I find that the tension this creates in my shoulders and elbows makes me feel significantly more stable behind the gun.

You could also be consistently pushing the gun down with each shot. If you shoot faster and it gets worse, this becomes more likely.

It's overwhelmingly likely (99%) you are moving the gun before the bullet has left the barrel. If the sights were your only problem, you'd have a nice group in a strange location. At 15 yards, the rounds really shouldn't take up more than a fist or so of space, and that's being kind of generous. The stronger grip is definitely a great idea, but that helps with recoil management not accuracy. Ultimately the bullet goes where the gun is pointed when the bullet leaves the barrel. Clearly you are pointing the gun in very different places on that 15 yard target.

I think you explained him just fine lol.

Thanks guys. The real talent in that video is running the timer, Moneypenny is also in the background somewhere. Tatsuya Sakai won in the early 2000's I think using the method you are speaking of. That is the opposite end of the not ideal spectrum in my opinion. He was clearly able to make it work for steel challenge that year, but I think the high degree of bend in his elbows would have severely hampered his ability to shoot multiple shots on a single target. I struggle with too much bend in my elbows as well.

Sure that's true in theory, but I don't think the 2 or 3 extra inches I get by locking my elbows is going to give me any measurable difference in potential accuracy with the type of shooting we do. I guess I just don't understand your point of view. I want fast follow up shots at 15 and 20 meters and I'm no more accurate with locked elbows than bent. In fact, locked elbows make my follow-up shots slower and less accurate because the recoil starts pushing my upper body around. Please don't think I've never tried it.

Some facts huh? Show me these "pros" that lock their elbows, because I've shot with a large amount of them and have never seen it. Some pictures/video may give the appearance of locked elbows from the camera's perspective, but I assure you they are almost always slightly bent. As I mentioned in an earlier post, you do not want the recoil to travel through locked arms into your shoulders, you ideally want the recoil to travel through tensed musculature into the ground. I'd like to look at video of you guys who lock your arms, because I bet your shoulders are getting pushed all over the place. You said bent arms act like shock absorbers....yes, exactly...that is a good thing though, not a bad thing. You are never going to stop or eliminate recoil, you can only manage it. It seems like a terrible idea to have two different gross motor patterns for shooting a pistol. The simpler way is often the better way, you'll do yourself a favor in the long run by sticking with one. I actually can't think of a single dynamic athletic movement that benefits from locking joints.