Mag changes..

[AS350Driver]

GrumpyOne,

While you have some very good pints I don't totally agree with you though.

I am a little surprised that your advice is to stop training.

Part of training is knowing the rules, going to matches and watching, looking up stages on youtube, talking to experienced competitors about your game plan,

Learning from watching where others made mistakes. Running competitions in your head before you start.

If you know for sure you are going to fail in the competition why not train to the point where you think you have a chance at a clean competition?

If all I practices is mag changes then I am the dumbest person alive.

Jeremy

Jeremy, I just started shooting in matches in August. For me and my first match all I wanted to do was be safe and not DQ myself. I didn't and I didn't finish last either, kind of a bonus. As Grumpy said there is nothing like game time experience. Being out there and walking through a stage prior to shooting it you might see it shot 3 different ways, and you might decide to do it differently then one of those ways. The other added bonus is you will meet great people who will go out of their way to help you or give advice. Get out there and start shooting.

[dsmw5142]

There is no substitute for a real match. You are going about this the wrong way, my friend. You need to drop ALL expextations on your future performance. ALL EXPECTATIONS. Free your mind from all expectations and just shoot.

Edit to add: Going into your first match, with your expectations so high, is a recipe for disaster. It will drag you down when you don't finish where you think you should, and disappoint you to the point of not possibly shooting another match. I have seen this happen countless times.

I agree. I have talked to some shooters who were actually pissed that they did not do as well in there first matches as they expected to. This is not an easy game.

Rushing will get you in trouble every time.

Sounds like some swat guys I know from work... at least one of them still comes back anyway.

[GrumpyOne]

There is no substitute for a real match. You are going about this the wrong way, my friend. You need to drop ALL expextations on your future performance. ALL EXPECTATIONS. Free your mind from all expectations and just shoot.

Edit to add: Going into your first match, with your expectations so high, is a recipe for disaster. It will drag you down when you don't finish where you think you should, and disappoint you to the point of not possibly shooting another match. I have seen this happen countless times.

I agree. I have talked to some shooters who were actually pissed that they did not do as well in there first matches as they expected to. This is not an easy game.

Rushing will get you in trouble every time.

Sounds like some swat guys I know from work... at least one of them still comes back anyway.

Ummmm, Yeah.....Must have the same guys down here....Walked in, told us how they were gonna beat the pants off of us, shot the match, never saw them again....Still waiting to rub it in....

[Mat Price]

ok as promised I will throw my two cents in here but I Just got off a 12 hour shift so lets hope this makes some sense.

What you are essentially practicing is doing mag changes via muscle memory. There is nothing wrong with that also so long as you understand what your actually training. So we use the term muscle memory allot in this sport but what is muscle memory really. Muscle memory really has little do with training the muscle and mostly due to training proprioceptive nerve cells. These cells are what is responsible for allowing our anatomy to be oriented to time and space. For example I know right now my hands are in front of me and know a general distance from my wrist to the end of my finger tips because of proprioceptive nervous cells. Now what I would like for you to do right now with out using your tounge or any other organ but your brain is find you first incisor tooth, your left upper third molar and your right k9 tooth and estimate the distance between them in both a vertical and horizontal plane. Dont be upset if you can't because teeth lack these cells, which is often the reason we bite our tongues or lips ect. Now do the same with your heart. You can't because it also lacks these cells. When you have a heart attack you may have pain all over because you have no way of determining where your heart is located in time and space.

Now I said all that so say this. What you are doing through repetition is training your body via index points to estimate the orientation of the mag to the mag well in space and we as humans are pretty dang good at doing exactly that. So long as the index points we use dont change or our orientation in space does not change. So if your goal is to have extremely fast reloads in one position, IE standing in such as a way as you would see in many of our classifiers than by all means continue your current tract. HOWEVER once you change your indexes you will find it exceedingly difficult to maintain a high level of speed and fluidity relying on muscle memory alone. What you really have to do have do is help your muscle memory along with visual input. By combing visual stimuli you have the ability to train a multitude of tasks and positions at once.

Try this, your good at doing mag changes in the dark. Change them now. Without any practice turn the lights off and simply step to the left and change a mag at the same time. I think you will see it is very difficult. However if you train with the lights on rely on your muscle memory to get the mag to mag well and use both muscle memory and visual stimuli to look the mag in the grip you will find your times will drop consistently you be much smoother and you will get back on target faster.

While I applaud you effort its net gain will not be much what you can truly use on game day.

However with that said, if your doing a standing in a box reload your method will be highly useful assuming you set up the same up stance and use the same index points every single time.

Ps I used a very simplified definition of muscle memory there is a TON of other factors that go in ingraining repetitious patters but for sake of argument. I Chose to focus on time and space and less on the actual motor memory goings on that also aid in the mapping of repetitious activity

Edited March 25, 2012 by Mat Price

[steel1212]

There is no substitute for a real match. You are going about this the wrong way, my friend. You need to drop ALL expextations on your future performance. ALL EXPECTATIONS. Free your mind from all expectations and just shoot.

Edit to add: Going into your first match, with your expectations so high, is a recipe for disaster. It will drag you down when you don't finish where you think you should, and disappoint you to the point of not possibly shooting another match. I have seen this happen countless times.

I agree. I have talked to some shooters who were actually pissed that they did not do as well in there first matches as they expected to. This is not an easy game.

Rushing will get you in trouble every time.

I've seen that a lot. You have so and so "I'm a great shot" guy show up to a match. He shots the match and thinks this isn't that hard. Then the scores come out and he is pissed at the results. The difference is there are guys that walk away pissed and never come back and there are guys that walk away pissed and can't wait to come back!

[JeremyV]

Mat price,

Thanks for your reply!

I have studied fine Motors skills for years and you are right on the money about how you could be really good from one position and then from another your body has no idea what is going on.

Training muscle memory is what I am after with the eyes closed training. I do it standing still as well as moving forward, backwards, sided to side and on a diagonal.

The goal is to get my movements down correctly without using my eyes to adjust my path on the way to the magwell.

This way my muscle memory will be aimed at the right spot rather then training for a long time with it being slightly off and just adjusting your aim with your eyes. Of course when this skill gets to a high level then training with your eyes closed will not help as much.

At some point the subconscious will be able to see the magwell while your doing other things. Your mind will also combine movement commands and send one quick signal through the neuropathways rather then many. You will start reacting rather then thinking. The goal is to train till its a reaction rather then a though.

If you are thinking about it you are way too slow. from what I understand in the early stage of training things work like this.. you think I need to change my mag then your brain decides what to do and then sends out an electrical signal to get your body moving in the right direction to pull the mag from your belt. your hand hits the mag and tells your brain that it is ready to grab the mag and pull it out. you tell your hand to grab the mag. you tell your arm to move back to the gun and to slam the mag home!.

That is a lot of work for your brain and it takes a lot of time.

The more you work on it the more you get a sequence of actions then your body can say run sequence #5 and you instantly draw a mag and change it without any thought about it. Most people will never reach this level. On average it takes about 10 years of training to get to where you are at this level with all your skills in a sport.

So that is the goal even though it is a long way away its something to work for and strive for. If you understand how your body learns things then you can speed up some of these processes and if you start with good form from the start then that speeds things up as well.

To everyone else who has posted about how I need to go to my first competition asap and to have no expectations on how well I will do.

First of all I have lost more competitions then most of you have ever attended. If i lose my fist competition that's fine with me. I will not quit I will go home and spend hundreds of hours working on what went wrong.

I have competed in many different sports and made it to the professional level in them and I think I have a good understanding of what competition is and am not afraid of it.

I have coached athletes from the bottom level all the way to the world championships and had them finish in the top ten. They also won 3 National Championships.

I know most of you Don't care what I have done before and think it has little to do with training for shooting but one day hopefully you will understand what I am talking about.

If you look at many of the top athletes you will notice that they end up trying different sports and in a very shot time they are at a very high level. Why is this? I believe it is because they have learned how to learn. They have also leaned to train their body and mind.

A lot of your comments have been about having me learning from the competition things that I should have learned in training way before I ever attempted the competition. Competition is to test what you have learned and trained for and to discover what you need work on. Competiton is not a place to come to learn how to play the game.

How many basketball players play their fist game without knowing the rules or the basic moves? You would not try to lean how to dribble the ball in your first game would you?

I am working on getting my own course built and training on it for a while to at least get the feel for what I am doing. I have a friend who shot A class who is going to help me. I have just got a few poppers and steel targets setup so far and will be building several different stages in the next few months. after I have run a few different stages and feel like I can run them without any errors I will change them around and do it again. after this I plan to attend my fist competition and learn what I need to work on.

After every competition I have done in my life win or lose I look at the whole competition and see where I lost the most time or points wherever or whatever that is I work on it for the next few months till the next big competition. At that competition I will find out what the next thing I need to work on it then I do it again and again. You are only as strong as your weakest link.

Jeremy

PS I am lucky and can have a range at my house! This morning I got to spend 3hr training on moving mag changes and shoot about 300rds

[GrumpyOne]

Mat price,

Thanks for your reply!

I have studied fine Motors skills for years and you are right on the money about how you could be really good from one position and then from another your body has no idea what is going on.

Training muscle memory is what I am after with the eyes closed training. I do it standing still as well as moving forward, backwards, sided to side and on a diagonal.

The goal is to get my movements down correctly without using my eyes to adjust my path on the way to the magwell.

This way my muscle memory will be aimed at the right spot rather then training for a long time with it being slightly off and just adjusting your aim with your eyes. Of course when this skill gets to a high level then training with your eyes closed will not help as much.

At some point the subconscious will be able to see the magwell while your doing other things. Your mind will also combine movement commands and send one quick signal through the neuropathways rather then many. You will start reacting rather then thinking. The goal is to train till its a reaction rather then a though.

If you are thinking about it you are way too slow. from what I understand in the early stage of training things work like this.. you think I need to change my mag then your brain decides what to do and then sends out an electrical signal to get your body moving in the right direction to pull the mag from your belt. your hand hits the mag and tells your brain that it is ready to grab the mag and pull it out. you tell your hand to grab the mag. you tell your arm to move back to the gun and to slam the mag home!.

That is a lot of work for your brain and it takes a lot of time.

The more you work on it the more you get a sequence of actions then your body can say run sequence #5 and you instantly draw a mag and change it without any thought about it. Most people will never reach this level. On average it takes about 10 years of training to get to where you are at this level with all your skills in a sport.

So that is the goal even though it is a long way away its something to work for and strive for. If you understand how your body learns things then you can speed up some of these processes and if you start with good form from the start then that speeds things up as well.

To everyone else who has posted about how I need to go to my first competition asap and to have no expectations on how well I will do.

First of all I have lost more competitions then most of you have ever attended. If i lose my fist competition that's fine with me. I will not quit I will go home and spend hundreds of hours working on what went wrong.

I have competed in many different sports and made it to the professional level in them and I think I have a good understanding of what competition is and am not afraid of it.

I have coached athletes from the bottom level all the way to the world championships and had them finish in the top ten. They also won 3 National Championships.

I know most of you Don't care what I have done before and think it has little to do with training for shooting but one day hopefully you will understand what I am talking about.

If you look at many of the top athletes you will notice that they end up trying different sports and in a very shot time they are at a very high level. Why is this? I believe it is because they have learned how to learn. They have also leaned to train their body and mind.

A lot of your comments have been about having me learning from the competition things that I should have learned in training way before I ever attempted the competition. Competition is to test what you have learned and trained for and to discover what you need work on. Competiton is not a place to come to learn how to play the game.

How many basketball players play their fist game without knowing the rules or the basic moves? You would not try to lean how to dribble the ball in your first game would you?

I am working on getting my own course built and training on it for a while to at least get the feel for what I am doing. I have a friend who shot A class who is going to help me. I have just got a few poppers and steel targets setup so far and will be building several different stages in the next few months. after I have run a few different stages and feel like I can run them without any errors I will change them around and do it again. after this I plan to attend my fist competition and learn what I need to work on.

After every competition I have done in my life win or lose I look at the whole competition and see where I lost the most time or points wherever or whatever that is I work on it for the next few months till the next big competition. At that competition I will find out what the next thing I need to work on it then I do it again and again. You are only as strong as your weakest link.

Jeremy

PS I am lucky and can have a range at my house! This morning I got to spend 3hr training on moving mag changes and shoot about 300rds

[old506]

With all the respect in the world....Relax man, and enjoy yourself. Everyone was trying to encourage you, not challenge your way of thinking or resume.

[JeremyV]

old506,

I am sorry I just get a little heated up when people are making it sound like I will quit if I don't win. Believe me I want to win just as much as the next guy if not more but losing is not a bad thing either as long as your learning.

I am having a blast training and doing drills and am sure my first competition will be tones of fun! It kind of reminds me of my airsoft days!

I was on a big airsoft team for awhile and we did some big competitions and it was a blast! Our Trainer was a Ranger and special forces instructor! Very intense guy but we had so much fun training together!

Jeremy

[lugnut]

Dude- reloading is a relatively small part in a full match- often times there are places to reload in between positions anyway. Good out and play some will you? You may very well find your reloads are great but your movement sucks. Get out there. Why the delay? No offense but you don't even know what you need to train on yet...

Edited March 25, 2012 by lugnut

[Mat Price]

Sounds good lets us know how it works out for u

[JeremyV]

Mat Price,

Thanks!

I will let you know how I am progressing and make sure to post about my first competition!

lugnut,

I may not know all the things I need work on but I do know a lot of things I need work on. I am planning on watching a competition in person soon.

[lugnut]

Mat Price,

Thanks!

I will let you know how I am progressing and make sure to post about my first competition!

lugnut,

I may not know all the things I need work on but I do know a lot of things I need work on. I am planning on watching a competition in person soon.

Watching is fun... shooting it is MUCH better.

[Sarge]

Sounds good lets us know how it works out for u

My thoughts exactly. Good luck with that!

We will all be waiting on the edges of our seats for you to post again.

[Sarge]

Mat price,

Thanks for your reply!

I have studied fine Motors skills for years and you are right on the money about how you could be really good from one position and then from another your body has no idea what is going on.

Training muscle memory is what I am after with the eyes closed training. I do it standing still as well as moving forward, backwards, sided to side and on a diagonal.

The goal is to get my movements down correctly without using my eyes to adjust my path on the way to the magwell.

This way my muscle memory will be aimed at the right spot rather then training for a long time with it being slightly off and just adjusting your aim with your eyes. Of course when this skill gets to a high level then training with your eyes closed will not help as much.

At some point the subconscious will be able to see the magwell while your doing other things. Your mind will also combine movement commands and send one quick signal through the neuropathways rather then many. You will start reacting rather then thinking. The goal is to train till its a reaction rather then a though.

If you are thinking about it you are way too slow. from what I understand in the early stage of training things work like this.. you think I need to change my mag then your brain decides what to do and then sends out an electrical signal to get your body moving in the right direction to pull the mag from your belt. your hand hits the mag and tells your brain that it is ready to grab the mag and pull it out. you tell your hand to grab the mag. you tell your arm to move back to the gun and to slam the mag home!.

That is a lot of work for your brain and it takes a lot of time.

The more you work on it the more you get a sequence of actions then your body can say run sequence #5 and you instantly draw a mag and change it without any thought about it. Most people will never reach this level. On average it takes about 10 years of training to get to where you are at this level with all your skills in a sport.

So that is the goal even though it is a long way away its something to work for and strive for. If you understand how your body learns things then you can speed up some of these processes and if you start with good form from the start then that speeds things up as well.

To everyone else who has posted about how I need to go to my first competition asap and to have no expectations on how well I will do.

First of all I have lost more competitions then most of you have ever attended. If i lose my fist competition that's fine with me. I will not quit I will go home and spend hundreds of hours working on what went wrong.

I have competed in many different sports and made it to the professional level in them and I think I have a good understanding of what competition is and am not afraid of it.

I have coached athletes from the bottom level all the way to the world championships and had them finish in the top ten. They also won 3 National Championships.

I know most of you Don't care what I have done before and think it has little to do with training for shooting but one day hopefully you will understand what I am talking about.

If you look at many of the top athletes you will notice that they end up trying different sports and in a very shot time they are at a very high level. Why is this? I believe it is because they have learned how to learn. They have also leaned to train their body and mind.

A lot of your comments have been about having me learning from the competition things that I should have learned in training way before I ever attempted the competition. Competition is to test what you have learned and trained for and to discover what you need work on. Competiton is not a place to come to learn how to play the game.

How many basketball players play their fist game without knowing the rules or the basic moves? You would not try to lean how to dribble the ball in your first game would you?

I am working on getting my own course built and training on it for a while to at least get the feel for what I am doing. I have a friend who shot A class who is going to help me. I have just got a few poppers and steel targets setup so far and will be building several different stages in the next few months. after I have run a few different stages and feel like I can run them without any errors I will change them around and do it again. after this I plan to attend my fist competition and learn what I need to work on.

After every competition I have done in my life win or lose I look at the whole competition and see where I lost the most time or points wherever or whatever that is I work on it for the next few months till the next big competition. At that competition I will find out what the next thing I need to work on it then I do it again and again. You are only as strong as your weakest link.

Jeremy

PS I am lucky and can have a range at my house! This morning I got to spend 3hr training on moving mag changes and shoot about 300rds

[Sarge]

First of all I have lost more competitions then most of you have ever attended.

Show off !

[GrumpyOne]

First of all I have lost more competitions then most of you have ever attended.

That is a very bold statement, as you have no idea how many "competitions" many of the members here have attended....I would venture to say that many members have upwards of 1k or more "competitions" under their belt...

[JeremyV]

Grumpyone,

You are right I have no idea how many competitions you guys have done... I did several hundred a year for 6 or 7 years then cut back to 20 or 30 for another few years. I assumed that was more then most of you have done but I could be totally wrong.

I am done posting on here and wont take up any more of your time.

I am sorry if I offended anyone in any way.

Jeremy

[lugnut]

Don't take offense... it's just your method seems a little unusual. If it works well... it could be a new potential training method for sure.

[Sarge]

I am done posting on here and wont take up any more of your time.

Good luck.

[Sarge]

First of all I have lost more competitions then most of you have ever attended.

That is a very bold statement, as you have no idea how many "competitions" many of the members here have attended....I would venture to say that many members have upwards of 1k or more "competitions" under their belt...

He is probably talking about any competition. Hell I have several competitions under my belt. Golf, Trap, USPSA, Tennis, raquetball,basketball, baseball,softball, Tank Gunnery, BFV Gunnery, Foosball, pool, ping pong, beer pong, ugly date contests, etc,etc,etc.

The only one I ever won was the ugly date contest! And I trained hard for that one.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Sarge

[Guest]

As was stated, your approach as a newbie to the sport is a little out of the norm…but I sincerely hope that you pursue this and start a Range Diary here on BE.com to keep us posted on your progress.

[MarkR]

I don't mean to come in here and stir the pot, but, I'll add my .02. Being a newb here, and to the sport of USPSA, I watched every youtube video I could get my eyes on for about a month. I practiced reloads in my room, dryfired at the light switch on the wall, and spent a lot of time at the range and at my brothers doing both slow fire and rapid fire drills. I took the plunge, contacted a great group of guys locally for USPSA, and went out to shoot a match.

NOTHING could have prepared me for what I was getting in to. It was everything I'd ever imagined. I've done a lot of tactial type 2 and 3 gun shooting at the range, and with guys from my department, but never once figured I'd be in the position I was in at the range that day. I read a while back, leave than G-damn ego in the car at the range, if not, leave it at the house, with yourself. You won't be perfect, hell I even got semi yelled at for coming close to the 180 rule, I earned that too, so no skin off my back. I walked to the side after my round, and praticed reloads, keeping the gun in front of my face, and keeping my upper body pointed down range during reloads on the move. On the range, you never think of things like this, you just run and gun.

As a new shooter, FAST reloads should not in any way shape form or fashion be a major priority. A good, clean B/A run should be, without getting your butt DQ'd. Take your time, don't try to mirror the pros just yet. Get your feet wet, get behind the gun and get the ball rolling. No offense, but I think ego may be a large factor for you, guaging from your previous posts. Man, leave that alone. Be humble, and learn from folks who have been there. Everyone learns differently, so take all of this for what it's worth. From one new shooter in the sport to another, go shoot a match, worry about your shots, speed both in shots and reloads will come in time. You won't be a world champion, or even area champ overnight.

[lugnut]

I don't mean to come in here and stir the pot, but, I'll add my .02. Being a newb here, and to the sport of USPSA, I watched every youtube video I could get my eyes on for about a month. I practiced reloads in my room, dryfired at the light switch on the wall, and spent a lot of time at the range and at my brothers doing both slow fire and rapid fire drills. I took the plunge, contacted a great group of guys locally for USPSA, and went out to shoot a match.

NOTHING could have prepared me for what I was getting in to. It was everything I'd ever imagined. I've done a lot of tactial type 2 and 3 gun shooting at the range, and with guys from my department, but never once figured I'd be in the position I was in at the range that day. I read a while back, leave than G-damn ego in the car at the range, if not, leave it at the house, with yourself. You won't be perfect, hell I even got semi yelled at for coming close to the 180 rule, I earned that too, so no skin off my back. I walked to the side after my round, and praticed reloads, keeping the gun in front of my face, and keeping my upper body pointed down range during reloads on the move. On the range, you never think of things like this, you just run and gun.

As a new shooter, FAST reloads should not in any way shape form or fashion be a major priority. A good, clean B/A run should be, without getting your butt DQ'd. Take your time, don't try to mirror the pros just yet. Get your feet wet, get behind the gun and get the ball rolling. No offense, but I think ego may be a large factor for you, guaging from your previous posts. Man, leave that alone. Be humble, and learn from folks who have been there. Everyone learns differently, so take all of this for what it's worth. From one new shooter in the sport to another, go shoot a match, worry about your shots, speed both in shots and reloads will come in time. You won't be a world champion, or even area champ overnight.

Great post. However I don't think the poster liked what we said and left. Too bad. Never hurts to listen.

[t0066jh]

I have been working on speeding up my mag changes and I start the timer and aim at a target 15 yards away finger on the trigger like I had just finished my last shot when the timer beeps I hit the mag release and drop my mag and draw a new one. The timer stops when the mag slams home.

I have not yet been to my first competition and was wondering what kind of times I should be shooting for? I started out really slow and have done thousands of reps and am speeding things up now but trying to keep them smooth. I am using an xdm 5.25 9mm that is stock so no magwell or anything.

I am just wondering what the average speed is and what super fast is? I just want to have some goals.

Thanks

Jeremy

Stop by a local match with a stop watch and time a few of the shooters. Get in the game. See how long it takes you to beat all of the D shooters and become a C....then B...then A...etc.

Practice...apply it...review...practice...apply it...review it. Keep it simple before you drive yourself nuts getting everything perfect before you show up at a match and prove you aren't. Just MHO