lugnut Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 I've been shooting for many years now and in general I've progressed pretty well. However very recently I've been negligent in follow thru and/or respect for easy wide open targets. Example- I've recently dropped several Mikes on my last few USPSA matches.... on wide open easy targets.. in some cases with targets at very close distances. It's embarrassing to have these issues at this stage of my game. Clearly I can shoot difficult shots, that I know. Many of my recent classifiers are in the mid 70s as well. In my last match I had two good stage wins. The other 4 stages killed me because of Mikes... All wide open <10 yard shots.. while I had mostly As on 25 yard drop turners/other targets. I am simply letting my mind and eyes get way a head of my actually shooting... I'm not following thru. I know I'm not seeing my sights in this case. This is not a bad flinch or anything like that... I'm simply disrespecting easy targets... and it's usually the close wide open targets. I'm trying to focus on hits and not speed but I honestly know when the buzzer goes off I want to go fast.... fast is what is fun for me. But not at the expense of misses! I'm at a loss at how to solve this problem. I don't think dry fire or live fire practice will help this... at least it hasn't so far. Maybe a shrink? I'm really, really going to put an emphasis on getting as many As on my next match as I can and try to ignore my times/results. If anyone can help me with this I'd be greatly appreciative. I don't want this to continue or develop into a longer term issue. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 I'm trying to focus on hits and not speed but I honestly know when the buzzer goes off I want to go fast.... fast is what is fun for me. But not at the expense of misses! You have made your choice. If you want different results, choose again. It has always been really easy for me to take certain targets for granted. They are almost like shooting ducks in a barrel. I had to rename them in my mind. I call them "Free Alphas". And, when I plan my stage I make a point to visualize the sights on my Free Alphas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maksim Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 My stupid bad habit is this, but to a greater extent.... pulling gun out too early before reload. :facepalm: On difficult shots I am fine, but when I pull out from an easy target, that last shot is often a D or a Mike... and it is the last round fired before the reload. whats the fix? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 My stupid bad habit is this, but to a greater extent.... pulling gun out too early before reload. :facepalm: On difficult shots I am fine, but when I pull out from an easy target, that last shot is often a D or a Mike... and it is the last round fired before the reload. whats the fix? Follow through. Lots of posts on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 Your "Decision Making" needs to be based on the shot calling process. Call your shot THEN perform the next action. Not Think about the next action to perform WHILE you are still shooting. I see a lot of shooters end up with crappy second shots, last shot in a string, or last shot before performing another action such as a reload because they are simply NOT paying attention to the last shot happening just before performing the next action. If you are thinking about doing the next thing while you are still trying to break the current shot you will not be able to call it effectively because your attention is focused on something else. Change your decision making process to a serial process. Call the shot THEN perform the next action. If you execute this properly you will find that your hits will get dramatically better and you will be able to transition to the next action faster because you KNOW that your last shot is good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maksim Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 Makes sense... there was a fairly fast, but tricky stage at the local club match, shooting around barrel, where another barrel covered most of the target. Actually started paying a bit more attention to each shot as opposed to going a few steps forward, and only dropped 2 charlies on the course of fire. Thank you for the advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lugnut Posted August 27, 2012 Author Share Posted August 27, 2012 I'm trying to focus on hits and not speed but I honestly know when the buzzer goes off I want to go fast.... fast is what is fun for me. But not at the expense of misses! You have made your choice. If you want different results, choose again. It has always been really easy for me to take certain targets for granted. They are almost like shooting ducks in a barrel. I had to rename them in my mind. I call them "Free Alphas". And, when I plan my stage I make a point to visualize the sights on my Free Alphas. Ironically I have discussed your "Free Alphas" concept with other folks before.... I need to think about this myself going forward. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin c Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 I'm guilty of the same failing, pulling off of the last shot before a transition. I've been told to make just one shot at a time, that only the one shot you're making matters right now, and that the time saved, if any, by rushing to the next shot will not make up for the "D" or mike that you threw at the last target. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lugnut Posted August 27, 2012 Author Share Posted August 27, 2012 Your "Decision Making" needs to be based on the shot calling process. Call your shot THEN perform the next action. Not Think about the next action to perform WHILE you are still shooting. I see a lot of shooters end up with crappy second shots, last shot in a string, or last shot before performing another action such as a reload because they are simply NOT paying attention to the last shot happening just before performing the next action. If you are thinking about doing the next thing while you are still trying to break the current shot you will not be able to call it effectively because your attention is focused on something else. Change your decision making process to a serial process. Call the shot THEN perform the next action. If you execute this properly you will find that your hits will get dramatically better and you will be able to transition to the next action faster because you KNOW that your last shot is good. Makes sense. The more I think about this I'm realizing that on close targets I've been very lax on shot calling (obviously!) and need to fix this. I think I'm using target focus and I'm not seeing the sights (or gun/slide) the way I should... or at all in some cases. I just need to make the decision to do this which I will. This exemplifies the need to separate the desire to win over the the process needed to win. I'm thinking too much about what I want as a result while ignoring the process needed to win. The process is simple.. call shot, do next thing... repeat. Damn I feel so stupid sometimes. Fortunately I think this is a temporary glitch that I shoot be able to correct and I'm now looking at this from a very positive perspective. I guess the good part is I can shoot well... I just need to keep things in order. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lugnut Posted August 27, 2012 Author Share Posted August 27, 2012 "When you fail you learn from the mistakes you made and it motivates you to work even harder." Natalie Gulbis I know what I have to do... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogtired Posted August 28, 2012 Share Posted August 28, 2012 In Brian's book he mentions those targets that you just have to "see enough" of to make a good shot (or something similar). You just need to see a little more of those free alphas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drivingit Posted August 29, 2012 Share Posted August 29, 2012 Great Thread. I shot the IN Championship match in August and had way too many mikes. As I evaluated my performance, I came to realize my mikes came on the second shot as I was going to do a reload next or transitioning to another "easy" target. Just got to remember the follow through and get the Alphas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Anderson Posted August 29, 2012 Share Posted August 29, 2012 When the timer goes off, you get to be in control of one idea. Whatever you decide you really want is what WILL happen. You choose to call every shot and that will happen to best of your current ability. You choose speed and and you will pull the trigger very fast and run as quick as you can. One will be very exhilarating. One will feel slow and might even be boring. Choose wisely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lugnut Posted August 30, 2012 Author Share Posted August 30, 2012 When the timer goes off, you get to be in control of one idea. Whatever you decide you really want is what WILL happen. You choose to call every shot and that will happen to best of your current ability. You choose speed and and you will pull the trigger very fast and run as quick as you can. One will be very exhilarating. One will feel slow and might even be boring. Choose wisely. Thanks Steve. I'm fortunate to get great advice on this thread from some great shooters so thank you. I almost 100% agree with you... but when I choose speed and pull the trigger fast it rarely feels exhilarating. Most of the time it just feels like I was trying to go too fast and it felt choppy and bad. Usually it IS slow and bad. I'll take boring or "routine" all day long. Pushing for speed is something I'd prefer to work on at practice NOT at matches. I have decided. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lugnut Posted August 30, 2012 Author Share Posted August 30, 2012 (edited) I have some ideas of how the way I've been practicing may have contributed to this.... I'll post the link when it's done. http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=158420 Edited August 30, 2012 by lugnut Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Anderson Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 With regard to close or near targets, there is no need to make a distinction between them. They all require the same thing: An acceptable sight picture. One of my favorite stories is Miking two close targets while Matt Burkett was watching. He laughed at me in such a way that I don't think I impressed him with my blinding speed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Griffin Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 With regard to close or near targets, there is no need to make a distinction between them. They all require the same thing: An acceptable sight picture. One of my favorite stories is Miking two close targets while Matt Burkett was watching. He laughed at me in such a way that I don't think I impressed him with my blinding speed. Very true, I remember at Area 8 this year watching someone just BLAZE through a stage but it was utterly clear where he Miked the hell out of a target. If you throw a Mike, it's a big, big deal, across score, mental, visual, and match performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xsniper Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 When the timer goes off, you get to be in control of one idea. Whatever you decide you really want is what WILL happen. You choose to call every shot and that will happen to best of your current ability. You choose speed and and you will pull the trigger very fast and run as quick as you can. One will be very exhilarating. One will feel slow and might even be boring. Choose wisely. Thanks for the reminder. I know this, but I don't do it consistantly. But I can!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 lugnut, It's easy to get sloppy on big, close targets. The fix: Always shoot all A's on them. Especially on close targets, you can shoot A's as fast as you can shoot D's or misses. Confirm that in practice, so you will do it when it counts. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lugnut Posted September 8, 2012 Author Share Posted September 8, 2012 lugnut, It's easy to get sloppy on big, close targets. The fix: Always shoot all A's on them. Especially on close targets, you can shoot A's as fast as you can shoot D's or misses. Confirm that in practice, so you will do it when it counts. be Thanks Brian. I'm seriously going to work on this. You know, it's funny. I was talking to a friend about close vs far targets and I was thinking- if I have an array of 4 targets at 7 yards and another array of 4 targets at 25 yards--- the As on the close targets count just as much at the As on the far targets! So why not make sure to get all the As on the close target since it might be tough to get all As on the harder targets! Duh! I'm getting all the close As for sure! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 lugnut, It's easy to get sloppy on big, close targets. The fix: Always shoot all A's on them. Especially on close targets, you can shoot A's as fast as you can shoot D's or misses. Confirm that in practice, so you will do it when it counts. be Thanks Brian. I'm seriously going to work on this. You know, it's funny. I was talking to a friend about close vs far targets and I was thinking- if I have an array of 4 targets at 7 yards and another array of 4 targets at 25 yards--- the As on the close targets count just as much at the As on the far targets! So why not make sure to get all the As on the close target since it might be tough to get all As on the harder targets! Duh! I'm getting all the close As for sure! There ye go! I think Kyle has a saying, something like "always get the easy A's." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Griffin Posted September 18, 2012 Share Posted September 18, 2012 (edited) lugnut, It's easy to get sloppy on big, close targets. The fix: Always shoot all A's on them. Especially on close targets, you can shoot A's as fast as you can shoot D's or misses. Confirm that in practice, so you will do it when it counts. be Thanks Brian. I'm seriously going to work on this. You know, it's funny. I was talking to a friend about close vs far targets and I was thinking- if I have an array of 4 targets at 7 yards and another array of 4 targets at 25 yards--- the As on the close targets count just as much at the As on the far targets! So why not make sure to get all the As on the close target since it might be tough to get all As on the harder targets! Duh! I'm getting all the close As for sure! (Note: Ridiculous hit factors follow in the service of math, with the assumption of no draw, no followup, no reloads, no movement, and transitions matching splits) I'll do you one better, because the As on the 25 yard targets are actually worth a hell of a lot more. More precisely, the non-As hurt more, because you're shooting slower on those targets, and thus are performing a lower hit factor, making points more important. Think about it. My splits at 25 yards are somewhere around .50 or .60, let's call it .50 for math's sake. My splits at 7 yards are in the .20s, let's call it .25. So if I shoot 4 targets at 7 yards for 2.00 seconds of shooting my best possible hit factor is 20. A point is therefore worth .05 of a second, or conversely a .05 of a second is worth a point. At 25 yards that same 40 points takes me 4 seconds to achieve, for a hit factor of 10. Points down are now penalizing me doubly for the same C hit. The A, looked at in reverse, is worth twice as much on that target, even though it doesn't seem that way at the end of the stage when everything is glommed together and averaged out. This is why the idea is to shoot all As all the time, at a speed where a few Cs creep in. That way you're riding the edge of speed while not incurring significant penalties. The real trick is this: We don't shoot that fast, and our transitions are much slower than our splits, which means we spend more time on non-sighting than sighting. Anyone who has worked extensively with distance and a timer knows how enormous a difference is .05 of a second on a split as far as the feeling of the shot. Add that .05 and you change "Hit the paper" to "Solid A hit" and that makes so much difference in how you are able to leave that target and move to the next. If I had to quantify the feeling of my shooting right now, it would be that I want a shot that I can forget about immediately after breaking it. People think revolver is slow, but in fact it's the fastest division. Where else do you have to manage two or three oscillations of the sights during the trigger pull, reload four times with both hands swapping guns, cylinders, etc. while on the run and then focus down on targets because you can't possibly afford a miss and an extra reload? That's the pure feeling of moving fast right there. There's much more to this game than the pull of a trigger, otherwise a bullseye shooter could come in and smoke us all. We have to couch our mental resources while in a state of managed panic, that's the real heart of the sport. Shoot the A every time in such a way that you think to yourself, "This will very, very likely be an A." . . . and then move on. tl;dr: The time it takes to shoot a good A is always less than the time saved by shooting wildly. The points are just gravy. Matt Edited September 18, 2012 by Matt Griffin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kali Posted September 28, 2012 Share Posted September 28, 2012 (edited) I've been shooting for many years now... It's embarrassing to have these issues at this stage of my game. Clearly I can shoot... It sounds like you are developing the mind of an expert and have ideas of how you should be shooting based on your preconceived notions of yourself instead of just seeing what is front of you and shooting. “If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few. ” ― Shunryu Suzuki Edited September 28, 2012 by Kali Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted September 28, 2012 Share Posted September 28, 2012 I've only be in this sport for 9 months but in the first class I took I was taught to make up a 3x5 index card and write on it several items used to develop the mental toughness necessary to succeed and at the top of this card is what is called my Performance Statement ... I say it before every drill I do and every stage I shoot. I grip the gun in my holster, close my eyes and repeat this statement. It's a personal statement that wil be different for everyone. Mine is: Grip the gun, see the front sight, shoot all alphas. I also repeat over and over again throughout a match ... " time doesn't matter" ... I've even gone so far as to stop using my PACT timer in training because it was reinforcing that I should go 'fast'. At this point in my development I believe that if I can't shoot all alphas, the other skills really don't matter since I don't possess the requisite marksmanship skills. Maybe I got this wrong but to me it doesn't matter how fast I'm going if I can't get the hits ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted September 28, 2012 Share Posted September 28, 2012 Maybe I got this wrong but to me it doesn't matter how fast I'm going if I can't get the hits ... Nothing wrong with that! Stick with it... As you learn to see more, faster, you'll learn to not care about time any more at all. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now