Learning to Shoot Better

[Pensfan]

Diligentia - Vis - Celeritas

Accuracy - Power - Speed

After shooting competitively for a little over five months, I finally had the epiphany and realization that I need to get more serious about my training and shooting if I intend to earn a GM classification in this sport. I have kicked around the idea of what I want to get out of shooting several times in the past five months, vacillating from "having fun with friends" to "being the best in the world" and everything in between.

The great epiphany came last week while shooting the 2012 Illinois Sectional with three GMs, including one of the best in the game Ben Stoeger. I went into the match thinking how great it was going to be to watch these three GMs tear up the stages, that I would learn so much from them regarding stage break down, reloads, entering/exiting shooting positions, etc. What I actually learned was not so much what these guys do... rather what I DON'T do. At that time, I lacked mental discipline and acuity. After tanking a stage, Ben told me point blank... "You are your own worst enemy" followed later by "you shoot with no discipline". At the moment I was taken aback by those statements, but knew right away they were 100% accurate. Rather than being bitter about those statements, they consumed me this entire week. They fueled my competitive nature and pushed me to take a serious look at my current training and goals and how inadequate they were.

I have been reading Saul Kirsh's "Thinking Practical Shooting" and have adopted several concepts in it regarding goal setting and establishing a training regimen. I now have a new set of goals, a new training regimen, and a path to earn my Grand Master card and be a world class competitor.

Thanks Ben! I am gunning for you next!

Edited September 10, 2012 by Pensfan

[Ben Stoeger]

After tanking a stage, Ben told me point blank...  "You are your own worst enemy"  followed later by "you shoot with no discipline".  At the moment I was taken aback by those statements, but knew right away they were 100% accurate. Rather than being bitter about those statements, they consumed me this entire week.

You shouldn't ask questions that you don't want to hear the answer to.

=)

[Pensfan]

You shouldn't ask questions that you don't want to hear the answer to.

=)

haha, I got exactly what I needed. And it led to a setting up a new system and practice routine as well.

For this first week I have a schedule laid out for practice, both dry fire and live fire, as well as a match this weekend. Right now I am using Ben's Dry Fire routine until I finish reading Kirsh's book and re-reading Steve Anderson's book. After these are digested I will likely combine aspects from all of them into a training routine that targets my greatest deficiencies.

Mon: Live Fire Drills, Ben's 15min Dry Fire Routine, Aerobic conditioning training

Tue: Dry Fire 15A & B, Strength training

Wed: Dry Fire 15 & C, Aerobic conditioning training

Thu: Dry Fire 15A, Live Fire with Trigger Time group at local range, Strength training

Fri: Dry Fire 15 & D, Aerobic conditioning training

Sat: Dry Fire 15A & E, Strength training

Sun: Local Monthly Match

Daily: Positive Mental Self-Talk, Visualization Practice, Physical & Mental Relaxation Exercises

Today:

Hit the range for the first day of my new training regimen to work on shooting with more discipline, particularly paying attention to the sights on every shot. I have been sloppy in the past with not seeing my sights and simply "shooting at brown" with the obvious results. Sometimes the hits were there, most of the time not. When they weren't there I would let negative self-talk tank the next stage and eventually the match.

Today I will see the sights rise and settle for every shot fired

Goals for the day:

- Align the sights for EVERY shot

- See the sights lift and return for EVERY shot

- Focus on calling shots, not looking for holes

- Establish baselines on drills to track improvement

Warmup:

- 5 Min Dry Fire: Draw and engage T1-T2 (two yards apart) with two shots each

- 5 Min Dry Fire: Box A, draw and move to Box B (5 yards away) and engage T1-T2 with two shots each

- 5 Min Dry Fire: Bill Drill T1, reload, Bill Drill T2

Drills: All paper drills performed from 7yds and Plate Rack from 10yds

- Bill Drill x 3 (only shots in A zone count)

- Tight Group x 3 (picking one spot on the target and emptying the mag as fast as possible while keeping the shots grouped as tight as possible)

- 3 Sec Par Drill (set timer to 3sec par, engage the A zone as many times as possible)

- Plate Rack: 2-reload/2-reload/2-reload, Freestyle x 6

- Plate Rack: Inline, freestyle x 6

- Plate Rack: Outside In, freestyle x 6

- Plate Rack: Inline, Strong Hand Only x 5

- Plate Rack: Inline, Weak Hand Only x 5

Baselines:

- Bill Drill: Fastest clean run - 2.47sec

- 3 Sec Par: Draw, engage 10 shots (1.32sec draw, .20 splits), 3.10sec

- Tight Group: 10 hits, 2.5", no timer

- Plate Rack 2-reload: 7.21sec

- Plate Rack Inline Freestyle: 3.33sec

- Plate Rack Outside In Freestyle: 4.08sec

- Plate Rack Inline SHO: 4.73sec

- Plate Rack Inline WHO: 5.46sec

Even with trying to focus on the sights, old habits came back and bit me hard at times. I will make a concerted effort during dry fire practice this week to make sure I see the sights on every trigger pull and work on calling shots rather than looking over the sights at the target.

[Pensfan]

Since shooting at brown without using my sights is problem number 1 I am working on right now an Number 2 is that my mental prep isn't as strong yet as it needs to be, I addressed those primarily in practice last night. Previously when the timer went off, I had the tendency to just start shooting at targets since my plan went out the window. I would over run targets, pick up unnecessary shots, etc. I am getting more disciplined every day now with dry fire and making a much more concerted effort to watch the sights for every trigger pull and focus on calling shots.

As for yesterday's practice, I worked through 15A and B last night for a little over an hour of overall practice. I was doing well with the "laid back" par times for all the drills with the exception of the reloads. I have lots of room for improvement with speeding up my reloads. After about 30-35 mins of dry fire, I spent another 30 minutes focusing on smooth clean reloads. No par time, just trying to go perfectly smooth with Draw, two upper A shots, reload, 4 lower A shots, reload, transition to next target, 2 upper A, repeat. I pretty much worked reloads until my shoulders were getting tired and I was starting to get sloppy. So I figured it was a good time to put everything away and focus on mental training.

I spent some time working through some mental exercises (positive self-talk, visualization around the house, and writing in my shooting journal) before wrapping up with about 7 minutes of speed reading eye exercise videos on youtube.

[Pensfan]

Had a great week in terms of training, stuck with my plan everyday with the exception of only doing reloads instead of the actual dry fire program on Wednesday evening. My reloads are leaving a lot of room for improvement so I wanted to try and work out some kinks there before a live fire session and two matches this weekend. All in all though, I felt like the practice was working well.

Thursday: Quick Skills Test - Using Ben's "Quick Skills Test" posted on the BE forums, I wanted to establish a baseline for more new training drills and start identifying and tracking areas that need the most work. Using this data I was able to fill out the skills assessment form taken from Saul Kirsch's book "Thinking Practical Shooting" and generate a very beneficial list of skills to be worked on first.

As a 70% B shooter, the times here are fairly in line with what other posters in the Quick Skills Test thread reported.

Total Time: 46.03

Penalties: 9.80

Adjusted Score: 55.83

Saturday Match: Shot a 6 stage match and sucked it up haha. I was joking around too much and didn't take it as seriously as I needed. A friend and I were joking about beating him and I continued with that thought process during the match. When I focus on beating a particular person, I don't shoot to my own game and that kills me. I had a decent match, but overall reverted to old undisciplined habits and shot with abandon rather than focusing purely on vision, watching sights, and calling shots. And yes... blew the classifier as well. big fat goose egg on it. I reshot it once, but it was nearly as bad so I didn't bother submitting it.

Sunday Match: Shot this match at PASA much better than Saturday's match. Rather than focusing on beating anyone, or speed, I simply focused on calling every shot and watching the sights rise every shot. I shot MUCH better on Sunday. My mental game is a make or break for me and I will get more focused on maintaining the proper competitive mindset from now on. The stages today were some of the same from the Illinois Sectional so I had the benefit of running them two weeks ago. Visualizing the stages was much easier as well obviously. I improved my scores today over the same ones from two weeks ago, in one by as much as over 25%.

I need to work on my mental game as much as anything this week and focus on what made the PASA match successful.

[Pensfan]

I haven't been posting here, too busy training haha. No seriously, I actually have been and it feels pretty good. I haven't been doing the physical training as strictly as I need/want to, but I have been keeping up with dry fire and live fire exercises and it is paying off.

Went to the range today and shot the Quick Skills Drill linked above and shot is much better today than two weeks ago. I only shaved 2.39 seconds off the previous raw time, however I was much more accurate today no misses and fewer Cs/Ds resulting in shaving 5.40 secs in penalties off the previous test for a total of 7.79 secs improvement in two weeks.

Total Time: 43.64

Penalties: 4.40

Adjusted Score: 48.04

Shot a Tactical Shotgun match on Saturday and a USPSA Match on Sunday. The shotgun match was a blast, but it is definitely something that is being relegated to just a couple matches a year for fun. The USPSA Match on Sunday went great though. I managed to focus on the front sight the majority of the targets and shot more disciplined than I have so far. Everything felt smooth and I only had one mental mistake on the day, unfortunately it was on the classifier and I pulled a headshot. A miss on only six shots killed the classifier. Despite that, I won two stages and managed to come in 2nd overall in Production.

Time for the what if game!! haha. The first stage of the day, I was the first shooter, and my first two shots grazed a no-shoot target and traveled through to the A-zone. Accurately scored as two no-shoots, 2 mikes. 1/8" of an inch leaning over, and I would have won that stage as well and won the match by 30 pts. Ahhh the what if game... fun times. haha

Had a great practice session today, watching sights rise and fall, practiced visualization, all in prep for a big match tomorrow.