CrashDodson

While I have never been called out on this at a match, major or local, I know that a more proper hands at sides stance is something I should work towards. Im hoping for a change to the rule book to allow for hands below edge of the belt

I have not shot these types of static drills live in a long time outside of match classifiers. I can definitely do some of that this weekend and report back. While I can do a .6 draw in dry fire, I find that my draw to first shot on easy targets live is usually .8 - .9ish. I do at times seem to have a hesitation on first shot in a match situation. When you say visually focusing on the wrong thing in dry fire, would that mean target vs front sight type focus?

I do see where you are coming from. I do notice that if I dont continuously practice these fundamentals that I suffer. After I got back from a recent vacation it took several reps to get my 4 aces back down below 2 seconds. Until I can do these fundamentals on my desired par time cold I will not be satisfied. I am very close but not quite there yet. At the same time these skills are the skills tested in classifiers. I have been focusing on these skills because in the past I have struggled with classifiers both mentally and technically. Honing these skills has boosted my confidence shooting classifiers and knowing I have the skill set to shoot 100% classifiers seems to calm my mind a bit when its go time. I agree that skills such as sub 2 sec 4 ace drills have little practical use in a field course. I am also honing these skills so that I can move through the classification system and hopefully stop concerning myself with it. I know classification should not be a concern but for what ever reason I think it is a mental road block for me. I could care less about winning A class or M class at a major match. For me its the top or nothing, so I want to have consistent GM level gun handling. Since focusing on these skills the last two months my classifier results have jumped from 70's to 90's. I can shoot GM level stuff in practice but I have yet to shoot a 100% classifier score in a match. My highest one to date I believe is 94%.

Here are some clips from tonight. Sorry for the crappy camera angle, my garage is a war zone right now due to work being done on my house from a recent storm.

Thanks. I have seen that site before. Would definitely prefer to buy something for the club. I couldn't imagine all those world shoot targets are some home made item but they could be.

I have found when I fumble its generally when trying to press out the gun before the mag is inserted far enough. When its smooth it should feel like the gun sucked up the mag. Re--obtaining the support hand grip is very important. If you have done a bunch of draw work you will instantly know if your grip is just millimeters off by the way it feels. I find using grip lotion really helps with this. For me the burkett drill helps me re-focus my attention on the mag well if I start missing reloads when pushing speed. The gun is aimed at the target and reload when you hear the beep or bring the mag to the edge of the magwell depending on what drill your doing. Par time at whatever your trying to achieve. The gun should be back on target with sights aligned at the par beep if your doing a full reload. For me the key to making 1 second or faster is a quick reaction to the beep. Snapping the hand down to the mag as fast as possible and looking at the mag well until the mag is inserted. I recently switched mag pouches and sliced my support hand thumb pretty good this morning doing reloads. Most of the time I dont drop a mag from the gun when doing reload drills but its good to do it occasionally to make sure your getting a good press on the mag release. If you know how to setup your timer with multiple par times you can do a drill where you do the burkett, with a pause and then finish the reload at the sound of the second par. This really breaks the reload down to its parts. You can also just practice snapping the hand to the mag on the beep to work on the reaction time if thats where you feel you may be losing time.

I couldn't agree more. Your response is one of the most profound things I have read on this forum in comparison to the circle jerk that most posts become. Perhaps for me because it directly correlates to a book I am listening to right now. I am self taught in my career, and very good at what I do. But shooting and computer network engineering seem to be different animals for me. In my job if I want to learn how to configure some new gizmo, I read the documentation, learn the theory behind it and then repeat the process until its burned in. My past experience with other technology generally decreases the time it takes to master something new. I have approached shooting the same way. For example I have trouble shooting steel targets. So I read, talk to others, watch videos, take classes and have shot a small fortune of rounds at plate racks and other steel targets without much improvement. The art of shot calling still alludes me, no matter how many shot calling specific drills I do. I have the same problem with people I work with in what seems like employees inability to learn what I see as basic troubleshooting skills. For shooting, the roles are reversed and I am the one struggling to solve my performance deficits. I have been and maybe still are in the random dry fire and live fire drills camp hoping for improvement. More than willing and able to put in the work, just not able to figure out yet what that work should be. The secret, is without a doubt, the art of learning how to learn and how to practice without a coach there to guide us like you have available in many other areas of sport.

@CHA-LEE Thank you for your participation. I agree that everyone is different and their requirements could be different. The goal of the post is to see what works for other people in order to build our own plan. Perhaps someone has a process that works for person X but person X has never heard of or thought of that approach before. Not all of us are lucky enough to have the time and finances to try the countless different training methods that one could dream up. Instead of throwing time and money down range I see no harm in trying to fast track the learning process by gleaning little training nuggets from others willing to share their mistakes and accomplishments. The difference in top level and good performers, in any field, is they have a strong mental game and they have found the key or "secret" to the form of purposeful practice that works for them. This secret may not work for the next person but its a good place to base their journey on.

Ya i can probably get some tonight

@Maximis228 Thank you for your reply. When you live fire are you doing mostly stage type work or do you also do some drills? Can you expand on your desire to increase your training intensity? Do you mean your focus while training or something else? Thanks!

Limited/M Dry fire 30-60 minutes twice a day 6-7 days a week. Been doing this level of dry fire for the last two months. Was doing about 30-60 minutes once a day 5 days a week prior. Have been dry firing seriously for about a year. I split my dry fire between Anderson's first 12 drills from refinement and repetition and Bens new dry fire book. For Andersons drills I take a timer and run each drill for about 3-5 minutes depending on my available time. I changed to this format after taking a class with Anderson about a month ago. Before that I was running each drill for 10-15 minutes until I ran out of time. For Bens drills I work through the book until I run out of time, doing the drills until I feel I have achieved a new par time or level of consistency. I have a small two car garage in which I have about 50% of the available space to work with. I dont have much room for movement, maybe 3 yards. I was in C class for about 6 months until I started taking dry fire more serious. I went from C to A in December after a few months of solid dry fire. It then took 4 months or so of solid dry fire almost exclusively using andersons 12 drills during that time to reach M. I think the refinement and repetition drills are perfect for improving your classifier skills. Bens drills work better for a more well rounded skill set. It comes down to your goals at the time. I wanted to get classification out of the way as a mental burden to move on to improving my overall skill set. I still have the goal of making GM by the end of the year but not focusing solely on Andersons drills while preparing for A4 and Nationals. Until the last two weeks or so dry fire has been 95% of my training due to time constraints. I am currently trying to work in live fire 2-3 days a week at least until after nationals. I am trying to do at least an hour per session which ends up being around 200-300 rounds. For live fire training my current plan is to do about two static drills per session that can be measured along with a few mini stages or drills that incorporate movement. As a result of my dry fire I have greatly improved at stand and shoot (classifier) type shooting but my field course results have not improved much from A to M. I am hoping the increased live fire practice will help me improve my field course results. I still struggle with weak/strong hand classifiers. Last year I took both of Ben's classes. This year I have taken classes with Ben, JJ and Anderson. I am currently considering taking a formal mental training course. I am reading or listening to audio books about performance/learning. I am currently listening to Josh Waitzkin's "The art of learning" for the second time back and forth to work. Earlier in the year I read "Peak" by Anders ericson and with winning in mind (2nd time)/freedom flight by Lanny Basham. I think that getting out of your own way and perfecting your mental game is the key to competing at the top level of the game once your shooting skills are at a high level. Current dry fire par times using 1/3rd scale targets at a simulated distance of about 10 yards. Draw .6 (both hands at sides and surrender) Turn and draw .6 Strong draw .6 weak draw .9 Burkett reload .6 reload .9 4 aces 1.8 Bill drill 1.6 Six reload six 3.5 El Prez 3.5 Six reload strong 3.7 six reload weak 4.0

This is expanding on the "Do you dry fire thread". I think all of us can benefit from a discussion like this. This is not intended as a short thread full of one sentence answers. If you are training hard and have lofty goals, myself and I am sure others, want to know what your doing to get there. If you read one of the recent front sight's they ask several people how much they practice. A lot of the top GM's responded with about an hour a day dry fire. This is at least when they are preparing for a nationals level event. I find that it is hard to get most top level guys to actually talk seriously about their own training. They seem to be mostly vague answers. On the extreme end Hwansik told me he is practicing about 6 hours a day between, live fire/dry fire/visualization/analyzing video. Hwansik said he built his training plan around Ben's books. There was a recent video on facebook where the world shoot guys said they shot between 5k-10k live fire practice rounds on average preparing for the world shoot specifically. In Bens podcast he mentioned shooting up to 600 rounds a day preparing for the world shoot splitting his live fire training between static drills and mini stage type work. ------------------------------- What is your current class in the division your training for? How much do you really dry fire? How long have you been dry firing at that level? What type of dry fire program are you doing? How much live fire training are you doing? What classes have you taken? Do you feel your current training is sufficient for your current goals? Do you do any mental specific training? Do you know the training routine of any top level shooters?

Seeing a lot of bobbing targets in world shoot videos. I cant find any bobbing targets for sale online. Anyone know who makes one?

You are going to have to burn in keeping the gun high in your subconscious before you can really press the speed. When you let your subconscious take over when trying to go fast you are reverting back because thats what you trained yourself to do.

I had to slow things down when I changed up my reload. The burkett/just the tip drill can help, its where you have the gun extended out and on the beep press your release and bring the mag just to the edge of the mag well. Its good to break down the components of a skill when trying to work through issues. For me I bring the gun straight back and point the magwell at the pouch. The front sight stays inline with eye level. Im right handed so I can see the right edge of the magwell and thats what I am looking to. Some production/SS guys bring their elbow in and anchor it to their side. I prefer to just bring the gun straight back and angle the magwell towards the pouch. It took me 1000's of reps to change to my current reload style and get the sub 1 second reload back. Many cuss words and many mags flying across the garage.

I have a friend that doesn't dry fire much, but has access to basically unlimited ammo and a personal range. So he replaces his dry fire with live fire.

@MemphisMechanic I did the same thing. Changed up my reloads after a recommendation, this was after 10's of thousands of reload reps. Most frustrating thing I have done in a long time, but it was for the better.

Thats funny. I have been permanently banished to the garage after dinging up the wood floors dropping mags in the living room. I now dont have a whole lot of room for movement. I setup some targets and even a wall in the back yard but find it hard to get motivated enough to dry fire out there.

For sure. For a long time I never used my hand grip stuff because its kind of expensive and I thought it didnt matter. I started using it during dry fire a few months ago and there is a very big difference. My hands feel like sand paper constantly now but just part of it I guess. In matches I have seen this correlate to more consistent grip, Especially when re-gripping after doing a reload which has been a problem for me. I need to practice reloads from more than one pouch more often that I do.

I feel this is only applicable if that is what you are training at the time. If you are training as you would shoot a match, then perfect. If you are training to shoot faster, then train shooting faster. The wheels will fall off and thats what you want. Its just like building muscle in the gym, you have to tear it down and fail in order to lift heavier the next time. You have to learn the feeling of going fast to ever be faster. If you stay in your comfort zone of shooting all A's all the time, you will likely be stuck in "accurate but slow" for a long time. Its very true you cant just sling your gun out there and sweep it across the targets and claim a 3 second el prez. Always pay attention to the sights, but you have to push your limits.

A lot of people I know think dry fire is boring. I dont know why it is not for me but I enjoy it. With 3 kids my live fire opportunity's are limited so I have to get my practice in somewhere. After the kids are in bed I will do my evening session and then do a morning session before getting ready for work. If I miss a session I get somewhat depressed. I just got back from a 5 day trip and it really bugged me that I couldn't dry fire during that time (went to new york and didn't want to attempt taking a gun). In order to excel at anything in life I feel you have to learn to love the process. If you cant find a way to love training then the top of the ladder will always be out of reach. It has taken me a while to get my mind set right. But now I use matches as a gauge of the quality of my practice rather than whatever reason I was shooting matches before. Some people just want to have fun and shoot with their buddies, and thats great for them. For me it has become so much more. The fact that dry fire is an option, and it works, is a major reason I have stuck with shooting. Being able to improve my skills at a sport in my garage is perfect for me.

I think that really depends on how far you want to go. I made master in limited a few months ago. I dry fire 30-60 minutes twice a day. Unless I have a live fire session on a day I will skip one dry fire session then. Get Stoegers and Andersons books. They will help get you going.

Shot calling should be what your doing every shot. But when focusing on going faster i dont make up bad shots. I see them and recognize they were bad but dont slow down to make them up. Goes to the idea that you cant focus on more than one thing at once. Either focus on going fast or focus on your shots/accuracy. You should train both but you cant really do it at the same time. Yes with the 1911 we only get one hammer fall. The key is to use the hammer every time and work the trigger hard for the remainder of the shots. For the longest time i was lazy and didn't cock the hammer for dry fire. I was called out on it by a top level trainer during a class. You want to make sure your not going to end up with trigger freeze during live fire. After the hammer falls on the first shot the remaining shots are done by a hard and fast trigger pull as straight back as possible. If your trigger pull is bad you will see it in the sights. You wont have a bullseye trigger pull in a match. You will be smashing the shit out of it for all but the toughest shots. Do that in dry fire and it forces a solid grip to keep those sights acceptable. I focus my dry fire on pushing speed. Gettting a solid repeatable grip, refining gun handling and paying attention to the sights. I finish my sessions with a few minutes of "match mode" where i make up any poor shots as soon as my brain processes them. Either on a random array of targets or a simulated plate rack.

In dry fire work the trigger hard. Because thats what will happen at a match. I shoot a 2011 and get one hammer fall per run. There is a way to hack the glock to get a more tactile trigger in dry fire. Im sure someone will chime in. They hold the slide slightly out of battery with something.

Its shot calling. The same way you would do when shooting live ammo. Call acceptable shots meaning the sights were ligned up to hit As or close Cs as you smash the trigger. If your trigger pull or grip is not correct you will see it in the sights. A lot of time dry fire is usefull for gaining speed. So you dont have to shoot makups every time but you do need to know where the sights were as the shot breaks. Your doing yourself no favors by just point shooting or sweeping targets without seeing an acceptable sight picture. Its good to end your dry fire sessions in a shot calling mode where you shoot an array of targets for a few minutes and make up your bad shots.