Learning to keep the hands relaxed when trying to shoot fast

[Cy Soto]

Earlier today I was shooting some timing drills at 25yds and I noticed that the faster I tried to shoot the more my groups would open up. As I tried to speed up my shooting I would begin to "milk" the grip applying pressure with the pinky and ring fingers of my strong hand.

When I am shooting for accuracy I "remind" myself to keep a relaxed grip but, as I try to speed up my shooting, I can't seem to maintain my hands in this relaxed state.

How can I fix this problem? What exercises should I practice during dry and live fire practices to break this habit?

[SA Friday]

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showforum=162

You are overdue for this.

[G-ManBart]

It's not a grip pressure problem, it's a trigger control problem/issue. The more grip strength/pressure you can put on the gun, while still keeping your trigger finger moving freely, the faster, and more accurately you can shoot at speed. Look at pictures of the best shooters and note the bulging muscles in their forearms...that's because they're cranking on the grip! It simply isn't possible to shoot even reasonably fast, accurate splits without using a lot of grip pressure. A comment about grip pressure from Benos:

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=110046&view=findpost&p=1251818

The whole concept that "milking" the grip causes an increase in grip size is absolutely, positively, 100% false. The group size increases because the trigger isn't pressed properly. If moving your other fingers causes you to improperly move your trigger finger, then the group size will increase, but it's because of what's going on with the trigger finger that's actually causing the problem.

The good thing is that all of this is easy to test. Next time you go to the range, try gripping the heck out of the gun, but backed off just enough to where you can move your trigger finger normally and execute a smooth trigger press with no acceleration to it. Do that and shoot a few groups to see if shots are wildly flinging all over the target because of all that grip tension. See what happens...

[Duane Thomas]

I find this thread very interesting. One thing I've found has been holding me back over the years is advice from well-meaning, better shooters. Or maybe the weight I give to that advice. Or maybe my misinterpretation of, and the weight I give to, advice from better shooters.

I don't believe that's it's impossible to shoot fast and accurately with a really light grip on the gun. When I was training with Matt Burkett in Arizona, one thing he told me was that I put way too much stress into my shooting. He actually called me "The Stress Monster" and suggested I seriously loosen up my grip on the gun. He wrapped his hand around mine, as if my hand was a pistol grip, and said to me, "That's how hard I grip the gun," and I could barely feel the pressure. This is the grip he uses when shooting .40 Major, and I don't think anyone's going to say that Matt can't shoot fast and accurately.

Then I went out and shot the Burkett Timing Drills. For those of you who aren't familiar, it's a set of shooting exercises, that you're supposed to fire three times, once with a really light grip on the gun, once with a medium grip on the gun, finally with a really hard grip on the gun, at various speeds. The goal being to see what sort of grip gives you the best accuracy at various speeds. What I found was that, regardless of the speed at which I was shooting, I always shot considerably more accurately with a really hard grip on the gun. But because this result went against what I'd been told by a high Grand Master shooter, I rejected it. Figured it must be "wrong".

I had missed the point of the timing drills. I'd figured they were there to show me that a light grip on the gun is the way to go. When my results rejected that, I rejected the results. This is, of course, not the scientific method. The scientific method says to go in with an open mind, then base your conclusions on the results of the experiment. Don't go in with a prejudgment of what the answer should be, and, when the results of the experiment contradict the prejudgment, reject the results. But I did, and probably wasted years more time in my evolution as a shooter.

It's only now, at the low IDPA Master level, that I think I'm really starting to figure out some things, and one of them is, again, something Matt Burkett told me years ago. I'll paraphrase. "I think that at the beginner level, what a firearms instructor owes the student is good, solid technique that, if they execute it, will swiftly give them a decent level of performance. But once you get beyond that, if you want to be great, you're going to have to start figuring things out for yourself. I'm not interested in building little clones of me, who shoot exactly the same way as me. I can teach students how to shoot using exactly the same techniques I do, but even if they're willing to practice as hard as I have, it's highly unlikely they'll work for them as well as they do for me. Because they're different people. They have a different body. A different nervous system, a different muscular system, a different skeletal system. And, probably most importantly, a different mind."

So I had missed the point of the timing drills. They weren't there to teach me the One Right Way to grip the gun. They were there to teach me what worked best for ME. Which may be - and probably is, actually - a different combination of techniques than what works for anyone else.

We don't want to adopt a snotty, know-it-all attitude, and reject the advice of better shooters out of hand, because it's a wonderful resource. We don't want to spend immense amounts of time reinventing the wheel. Having said that, I think we also need to be (1) open to trying new things, while at the same time (2) understanding that the techniques that work for people who are, no doubt about it, better shooters than we, are not necessarily the techniques that are going to work best for us.

[Jake Di Vita]

I would say the term "relaxed" should refer to your mental disposition rather than physical tension.

[Duane Thomas]

Good point. When I was interviewing Brian for the Front Sight article(s) I did on him, he commented, "I used the term 'relaxed' in my book to describe my shooting, and I wish I hadn't because that's caused a lot of confusion. I'm not saying I don't grip the gun hard when I shoot. I was referring to 'relaxed' as an overall attitude."

[waxman]

This is pretty good stuff in this thread. I have noticed that If I make a conscious effort to grip my support hand like crazy, and my gun gripping hand about 50% it works the best for me. I would say a person could really find what works for them, by shooting the classifier "can you count". If you dont have the perfect amount of tension, relaxation, and calm mind, crazy thing will show up here.

[el pres]

Milking the grip is not about how hard you grip or squeez the gun. Its about how much jerking and pushing of the grip you do while tensed up shooting fast. Forget about the tensed up go fast mindset and just pull the trigger as the sight returns into the notch, you cant go any faster. Everything else is just the gun driving you as your trying to hang on to the grip causing shots to go everywhere..

[Jake Di Vita]

That makes sense that problems in your technique manifest themselves when the intensity of your shooting increases.

In general when you operate at or near the limit of your ability, weaknesses show up. This is the key reason why I'm a firm believer in pushing hard in practice and NOT shooting all alphas (although the goal should still be to hit the A box).

[Cy Soto]

I would say the term "relaxed" should refer to your mental disposition rather than physical tension.

Good point. When I was interviewing Brian for the Front Sight article(s) I did on him, he commented, "I used the term 'relaxed' in my book to describe my shooting, and I wish I hadn't because that's caused a lot of confusion. I'm not saying I don't grip the gun hard when I shoot. I was referring to 'relaxed' as an overall attitude."

I had been misinterpreting this term all along thinking that "relaxed" was a physical trait as opposed to a mental one. Thank you for helping me understand!

[G-ManBart]

I don't believe that's it's impossible to shoot fast and accurately with a really light grip on the gun.

What I found was that, regardless of the speed at which I was shooting, I always shot considerably more accurately with a really hard grip on the gun. But because this result went against what I'd been told by a high Grand Master shooter, I rejected it. Figured it must be "wrong".

Did you ever come to a conclusion as to why those seem to contradict one another?

It would seem that one of the problems is that "really light" means something different to everyone; it's totally subjective. If it's really a light grip, the muzzle flip and recoil is going to move the gun a lot and there's no way to shoot a fast split (say sub .20) if the gun is still at the peak of it's flip at that point. The other thing is that what someone's grip feels like in between shots isn't necessarily what it is post-ignition. We (generic) are driving the gun after the shot breaks when we're shooting fast....lots of muscle input there, and humans are notoriously poor at being able to measure pressure...almost all of our "systems" are designed around movement, not pressure. Throw in that the more grip strength someone has, they can be putting a lot of pressure on the gun, but feel very little effort since they're not "trying".

I would love to see a system with pressure sensors on a gun so we could record the actual foot pounds top shooters exert on the grip. Going off high speed photos of those guys shooting at speed, I suspect it's a lot higher than what we might think and I'd bet that they all have pretty high maximum grip pressure levels. Isn't it Robert Vogel that people joke about how he walks around with a grip strength trainer, and a very heavy one at that? When I took the class with Manny he told something like "even with an Open gun, if you increase your grip strength, you'll be able to keep your accuracy and shoot even faster". I can't imagine that being able to put more pressure on the gun, without "trying", would be anything but helpful since it wouldn't cause tension in the trigger finger.

The other thing that occurs to me is that people who are struggling often relax their grip, significantly, when the shot breaks....we see the fingers open up, then close back down. The gun is all over God's creation when that happens. Good shooters don't do that from everything I've seen...they appear to be doing the opposite, they grip the gun looser before the shot, then drive the gun after the shot, and driving the gun takes more grip pressure, which will keep those fingers from opening up.

All of that subject stuff is why I suggested trying it and seeing what happens. I'd still maintain that accuracy is still overwhelmingly a function of trigger control....a perfect trigger press with nearly a death grip is still a perfect press and the bullet will go where we want it to. If the grip pressure is too high, and trigger control suffers, it's not grip pressure causing a lack of accuracy, it's grip pressure causing a lack of trigger control....an indirect relationship.

The problem is that it's a dynamic event and we really don't have anything other than visual cues to go off of when watching other shooters...I may just try to talk to our experts and see if they can't come up with a pressure sensing system that could be mounted on a gun grip

[Matt Griffin]

Well, it can be both. Relaxation is perhaps the biggest discovery I've ever made in shooting. (note: I know I didn't "discover" it to the exclusion of others, I just finally recognized and incorporated it) It allows you to open up to all of the input and project your will onto your actions seemingly instantaneously. It's where the slow feeling comes from when you hit the zone, everything feels slow because you're processing so much more than you are used to, your brain assumes you have to be going slowly to see and feel so much. Believe it or not, banjo pickin' has taught me a great deal about relaxation and performance. Like Duane I'm a very high-stress, high-tension person naturally, and I clamp down so hard on everything I do I often hamstring my efforts.

For the grip, do this: Hang on to the gun while maintaining a clear, unbroken feeling of the trigger surface. If you can continuously discern the texture of the trigger (feel free to put some bumps on it with a punch/dremel) you're shooting as fast as you can. If the gun moves in your grip, then you need to turn it up a bit, but after that just watch (feel) for the trigger and let it be your guide.

H.

Edited July 30, 2010 by Houngan

[benos]

Cy,

This is what worked for me.

be

[Graham Smith]

Relaxation is perhaps the biggest discovery I've ever made in shooting.

Until I read this, I had forgotten about something I learned when I was taking karate. During college in Long Beach California (1968), I had the chance to take Shotokan Karate classes at the college. The only things taught at the college were basic techniques and kata (choreographed patterns). One of the things I recall taking away from the class was something that I think was called "relaxed tension". Part of this had to do with stored energy but there was a meaning that applies well to this topic. That is the idea that you cannot move smoothly if you are all tensed up.

Kata were designed to be done over and over again, and in doing so, you learned key movements and techniques (sort of like wax on, wax off). Many parts of the katas were done in a state of relaxed tension, a balancing act between being loose so you could move and bringing tension to bear in a striking movement.

There are aspects to shooting that are very much like this. Holding your body stiff and the gun in a death grip means that you cannot move, but if you are too loose, you cannot control the gun. You must find a balance between the two, a state of relaxed tension, that you can turn up and down in half a heart beat.

Now, if I can just remember how to do that...