Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?

[Steve Anderson]

One of the single greatest posts on here, ever. So Esther, read this again. very Carefully:

Quit trying to visually focus on only the front sight, this is a common mistake. See everything having to do with the shot and see clearer the element most important to the quality of shot you are trying to shoot.

You do not have to see the sights clearly if you are shooting fast and or at close targets.

Remember, easy targets are only easy if you are going slow and hard targets are only hard if you are going fast.

The process of trying to always see too much clarity in the front sight will only cause you to stop aiming and not see the other elements of the sight picture.

Learning to operate the trigger fast is necessary to shoot fast (obviously), and is a highly underdeveloped skill for many.

Aiming is more important than looking at the front sight. At the beginning you may simplify the process by emphasizing one third of the items involved in, but at some point you are going to have to move on from that fixation.

You should arrive at a point as your skill develops where you see the sights but do not have to over emphasize looking for them, especially just the front. Most shooters have been relentlessly drilled to the "focus on the front sight thing" so much that they now believe it should forever be there mantra and only focal point. This will always limit your speed and accuracy.

As far as seeing and keeping in sharp focus the sights during the recoil cycle, few if anyone can do this with a gun that has much vertical movement in recoil. I mean by this that they are not able to track the sights during recoil well enough to actually keep the center of focus on the sight. Your eye doesn't move fast enough. Nor would you want it constantly being moved out of alignment with the target.

Fuzzy sights and a clear target are sometimes better. This will be hard for some to understand and for many more to accept. That's OK, many viewpoints are being expressed and mine is only one, albeit based on over thirty years of intense study and training on the subject.

One truth: Do not search for or accept as gospel a single trick to always focus on other than Skill, confidence and experience. If you do you will be missing something that you oughta be seeing or feeling and your performance will always be lacking......

[Esther]

Steve - Thanks. I read it again carefully.

It's been a discouraging few days. I'm heavier and my blood sugars are higher than ever. I wanted to go for a run but my knees have been hurting since I got back from Oregon. (I'm not sure why, maybe it was all the sitting in small cars and/or wearing my sneakers instead of my normal Naot sandals.)

I've studied and tried to solve this compulsive behavior from so many different perspectives - medical, biological, sociocultural, psychological, spiritual *- and it just doesn't melt away. I talked to my friend and he said that I am in control of who I am and who I become and what I do. I need to DECIDE to never gobble ever again. And I did. And then I gobbled. And then I gobbled again. (So I must not have REALLY decided, or something...)

Eastern Orthodox Christians have a beautiful concept of growing into the likeness of God. You start out with the image of God and grow (through effort and by grace) into the likeness of God. In other words, you start out with potential, freedom, rationality; but it takes work to attain the likeness of and communion with God.

Lanny Bassham (and Steve Anderson ) say that your self-image becomes your reality. Well, who is the likeness that Esther wants to grow into? Beautiful, artistic, wise, compassionate, pure... I want to be the Esther who lives and grows into eternity. Who shoots amazingly and writes beautiful, meaningful, lasting things.

This is a shooting diary, not a monastic journal. I will have more shooting updates soon.

* It's interesting to me that no one REALLY seems to understand or know how to treat addictions. (The relapse rate from rehab centers, for instance, is stunningly high.) Groups like AA work for many people, but not everyone, and medical professionals don't quite understand why they work (i.e., Is it the community? the belief in a higher power? being accountable to a sponsor?). Some former addicts have a story of how they hit "rock bottom" and just decided to quit, and succeeded. Others go through more of an ebb-and-flow process.

In my opinion, there is no 12 Step Plan/Intuitive Eating program/Four Steps of Mindfulness that you can follow and be guaranteed to heal. It's kind of like becoming a great shooter. I know the capability is within me, and others can and do help, but there is no, "Do this to get that."

I've found Brian's advice to be helpful (paraphrased): "Try everything. Keep what works. Discard the rest. If you pay attention you will find the way that suits you and your temperament."

Edited March 1, 2013 by Esther

[Aglifter]

I don't know if it will work for you, but a couple things that I heard/experienced recently (met a great pastor the other day.)

Christians are meant to be vessels for Christ - sometimes we have to let go, and stop trying to do things in our own strength, and let Him take over.

In other words, "I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me."

Do you gobble out of anxiety?

[toothguy]

Quit trying to visually focus on only the front sight, this is a common mistake. See everything having to do with the shot and see clearer the element most important to the quality of shot you are trying to shoot.

You do not have to see the sights clearly if you are shooting fast and or at close targets.

Remember, easy targets are only easy if you are going slow and hard targets are only hard if you are going fast.

The process of trying to always see too much clarity in the front sight will only cause you to stop aiming and not see the other elements of the sight picture.

Learning to operate the trigger fast is necessary to shoot fast (obviously), and is a highly underdeveloped skill for many.

Aiming is more important than looking at the front sight. At the beginning you may simplify the process by emphasizing one third of the items involved in, but at some point you are going to have to move on from that fixation.

You should arrive at a point as your skill develops where you see the sights but do not have to over emphasize looking for them, especially just the front. Most shooters have been relentlessly drilled to the "focus on the front sight thing" so much that they now believe it should forever be there mantra and only focal point. This will always limit your speed and accuracy.

As far as seeing and keeping in sharp focus the sights during the recoil cycle, few if anyone can do this with a gun that has much vertical movement in recoil. I mean by this that they are not able to track the sights during recoil well enough to actually keep the center of focus on the sight. Your eye doesn't move fast enough. Nor would you want it constantly being moved out of alignment with the target.

Fuzzy sights and a clear target are sometimes better. This will be hard for some to understand and for many more to accept. That's OK, many viewpoints are being expressed and mine is only one, albeit based on over thirty years of intense study and training on the subject.

One truth: Do not search for or accept as gospel a single trick to always focus on other than Skill, confidence and experience. If you do you will be missing something that you oughta be seeing or feeling and your performance will always be lacking......

That's probably good advice for an experienced shooter that has learned to call shots and developed a reliable index. A good Bullseye shooter, shooting USPSA, that has trained to use the front sight as a focus can choose not to because the situation does't require it, and in time they can develope speed. If you take an excellent USPSA shooter that has not learned to use a front sight focus they don't do well in Bullseye, doesn't seem like they want to shoot Bianchi either.

When I first read Brian's book a lot of it made no sense to me, untill I realized the cover says "Beyond Fundamentals", and I hadn't learned any yet.

Edited March 1, 2013 by toothguy

[TGO]

I'm not so sure? I've seen no bullseye shooter, at least a good one become truly fast. Bullseye is terrible training for IPSC and IPSC shooting is the most useless skill set a bullseye shooter could ever want to develop. One requires absolute precision at the cost of any real speed and the other penalizes slowness so much that missing fast is preferable.

The concept that you can just choose not to focus on the front sight and that will result in speed is an urban legend. Shooting fast doesn't mean not seeing the sight, sights, or aiming. It just requires you to do it quickly which normally means doing as little of it as you can get by with to save time.

Focusing on the front sight, depending on what you mean does not cause a shooter to be slow. Some of this might be getting a little confusing. I apologize.

Not sure how calling shots and developing a reliable index plays into all this yet. That would make an interesting discussion of it's own!

The things I wrote have little to do with the experience level of the shooter. They have to do with skill level. Any shooter will have to perform the balancing act of speed versus accuracy in the correct ratios to be good as an IPSC shooter. Or a Bianchi shooter. Or a bullseye shooter. Or cowboy fast draw shooter, etc. The balance point must be achieved but is not fixed.

Mental focus and mistakes are regularly blamed for failure where lack of skill should be. What is working as a mental focus point may vary, but the physical skills are pretty well defined and somewhat inflexible. They are finite and easy to identify. Just hard to do!! Moral of the story; get better and it gets easier!!

In my experience, only a couple shooters who started out as and became good precision shooters ever figured out how to let go of conscience control to the degree that they ever become good speed shooters. Brian is the only one that became top level, who I know.

The same is true in reverse. I've known few shooters who came up shooting the fast disciplines that became very good precision shooters. Doug Koenig is one of them.

I consider the Bianchi cup to be in the middle. It is a curious event as it is too fast for the precision guys and too accurate for the speed guys, as a rule. The nearest discipline to it is PPC. Many of those shooters cross over successfully. Interesting is that Phil Hemphill was a PPC national champion, did very well at Bianchi and is a National champion in bullseye now. IPSC is a little out of his wheelhouse but he has the other side covered pretty well from middle over.

As speed shooters crossing over go, I definitely came from the shoot fast and hope for the best side of things and decided to develop enough precision to be effective at the Bianchi Cup. Bullseye, although I am trying, is a long ways out of my wheelhouse. And my scores show that. This has little to do with aiming or looking at the sights. I have found it to be more of an issue of patience and trying to solve a problem in a manner that can't be achieved with the tools applied. I come from the side of the tracks that solves problems to a large degree by application of speed. This can't solve my bullseye dilemma. And it isn't directly about slowing down. But that's another discussion.

So, the thoughts I previously posted are still accurate as far as I can tell. Then again, someone will disagree.

I'm a lot off subject here, but when I gets to ramblin' I just can't stop!!

Again, do not limit your focus to a single item, it ain't that simple. If it was then everyone would be better by doing that. All good shots are good aimers but not all good aimers are good shots. I love that kind of stuff.

Edited March 2, 2013 by TGO

[Steve RA]

I agree about the bullseye shooters having a hard time going fast, that is where I came from (pistol wise) and just never got very fast, that and shooting my first IPSC/USPSA match at the age of 46. At a number of big matches I'd have a better points score than the top finishers, only problem was they did it in half the time I took.

Probably the best way to do it is start young and pick which fork of the road you wish to travel.

[toothguy]

I'm not so sure? I've seen no bullseye shooter, at least a good one become truly fast. Bullseye is terrible training for IPSC and IPSC shooting is the most useless skill set a bullseye shooter could ever want to develop. One requires absolute precision at the cost of any real speed and the other penalizes slowness so much that missing fast is preferable.

The concept that you can just choose not to focus on the front sight and that will result in speed is an urban legend. Shooting fast doesn't mean not seeing the sight, sights, or aiming. It just requires you to do it quickly which normally means doing as little of it as you can get by with to save time.

Focusing on the front sight, depending on what you mean does not cause a shooter to be slow. Some of this might be getting a little confusing. I apologize.

Not sure how calling shots and developing a reliable index plays into all this yet. That would make an interesting discussion of it's own!

The things I wrote have little to do with the experience level of the shooter. They have to do with skill level. Any shooter will have to perform the balancing act of speed versus accuracy in the correct ratios to be good as an IPSC shooter. Or a Bianchi shooter. Or a bullseye shooter. Or cowboy fast draw shooter, etc. The balance point must be achieved but is not fixed.

Mental focus and mistakes are regularly blamed for failure where lack of skill should be. What is working as a mental focus point may vary, but the physical skills are pretty well defined and somewhat inflexible. They are finite and easy to identify. Just hard to do!! Moral of the story; get better and it gets easier!!

In my experience, only a couple shooters who started out as and became good precision shooters ever figured out how to let go of conscience control to the degree that they ever become good speed shooters. Brian is the only one that became top level, who I know.

The same is true in reverse. I've known few shooters who came up shooting the fast disciplines that became very good precision shooters. Doug Koenig is one of them.

I consider the Bianchi cup to be in the middle. It is a curious event as it is too fast for the precision guys and too accurate for the speed guys, as a rule. The nearest discipline to it is PPC. Many of those shooters cross over successfully. Interesting is that Phil Hemphill was a PPC national champion, did very well at Bianchi and is a National champion in bullseye now. IPSC is a little out of his wheelhouse but he has the other side covered pretty well from middle over.

As speed shooters crossing over go, I definitely came from the shoot fast and hope for the best side of things and decided to develop enough precision to be effective at the Bianchi Cup. Bullseye, although I am trying, is a long ways out of my wheelhouse. And my scores show that. This has little to do with aiming or looking at the sights. I have found it to be more of an issue of patience and trying to solve a problem in a manner that can't be achieved with the tools applied. I come from the side of the tracks that solves problems to a large degree by application of speed. This can't solve my bullseye dilemma. And it isn't directly about slowing down. But that's another discussion.

So, the thoughts I previously posted are still accurate as far as I can tell. Then again, someone will disagree.

I'm a lot off subject here, but when I gets to ramblin' I just can't stop!!

Again, do not limit your focus to a single item, it ain't that simple. If it was then everyone would be better by doing that. All good shots are good aimers but not all good aimers are good shots. I love that kind of stuff.

I think the difference between watching and not watching the front sight is follow through. It's hard to develope visual patience when you aren't seeing and waiting for the front sight to lift. If your shooting without follow through an error is introduced that can be deminished shooting at close targets or if you have developed a very good index (auto pilot) from years of shooting. That index allows you to start to aquire the next target before the current shot is completed. The faster and better quality trigger pull aid the index so the sights aren't pulled off target for the fraction of a second that the focus is now placed on the next target.

I quess I'm comming from the direction of the new shooter that doesn't have any fundamentals. When I started I wanted to become a good shooter so I started shooting USPSA and PPC. I was slow at USPSA but shot all A's and was done shooting the 2 min 45 sec PPC sections in 30 sec. Warren Moore helped me a lot to work on fundamentals, and I started slowing down shooting PPC feeling the trigger on each shot and watching and waiting for the front sight to lift. I utilized the time better and my quality went way up. I started shooting USPSA faster and doing better as well but I stopped USPSA to shoot Action Pistol and PPC (to many time conflicts).

I'm thinking of comming back to USPSA and shooting a 627 in Limited 10 this summer after the Cup. For myself I think I'm going to try to stay with the front sight and try to get more speed from doing the things inbetween the shots sooner. I think after a certain time I will find a balance that takes away some follow through but I will still have that skill set when needed.

[TGO]

Much of what

I'm not so sure? I've seen no bullseye shooter, at least a good one become truly fast. Bullseye is terrible training for IPSC and IPSC shooting is the most useless skill set a bullseye shooter could ever want to develop. One requires absolute precision at the cost of any real speed and the other penalizes slowness so much that missing fast is preferable.

The concept that you can just choose not to focus on the front sight and that will result in speed is an urban legend. Shooting fast doesn't mean not seeing the sight, sights, or aiming. It just requires you to do it quickly which normally means doing as little of it as you can get by with to save time.

Focusing on the front sight, depending on what you mean does not cause a shooter to be slow. Some of this might be getting a little confusing. I apologize.

Not sure how calling shots and developing a reliable index plays into all this yet. That would make an interesting discussion of it's own!

The things I wrote have little to do with the experience level of the shooter. They have to do with skill level. Any shooter will have to perform the balancing act of speed versus accuracy in the correct ratios to be good as an IPSC shooter. Or a Bianchi shooter. Or a bullseye shooter. Or cowboy fast draw shooter, etc. The balance point must be achieved but is not fixed.

Mental focus and mistakes are regularly blamed for failure where lack of skill should be. What is working as a mental focus point may vary, but the physical skills are pretty well defined and somewhat inflexible. They are finite and easy to identify. Just hard to do!! Moral of the story; get better and it gets easier!!

In my experience, only a couple shooters who started out as and became good precision shooters ever figured out how to let go of conscience control to the degree that they ever become good speed shooters. Brian is the only one that became top level, who I know.

The same is true in reverse. I've known few shooters who came up shooting the fast disciplines that became very good precision shooters. Doug Koenig is one of them.

I consider the Bianchi cup to be in the middle. It is a curious event as it is too fast for the precision guys and too accurate for the speed guys, as a rule. The nearest discipline to it is PPC. Many of those shooters cross over successfully. Interesting is that Phil Hemphill was a PPC national champion, did very well at Bianchi and is a National champion in bullseye now. IPSC is a little out of his wheelhouse but he has the other side covered pretty well from middle over.

As speed shooters crossing over go, I definitely came from the shoot fast and hope for the best side of things and decided to develop enough precision to be effective at the Bianchi Cup. Bullseye, although I am trying, is a long ways out of my wheelhouse. And my scores show that. This has little to do with aiming or looking at the sights. I have found it to be more of an issue of patience and trying to solve a problem in a manner that can't be achieved with the tools applied. I come from the side of the tracks that solves problems to a large degree by application of speed. This can't solve my bullseye dilemma. And it isn't directly about slowing down. But that's another discussion.

So, the thoughts I previously posted are still accurate as far as I can tell. Then again, someone will disagree.

I'm a lot off subject here, but when I gets to ramblin' I just can't stop!!

Again, do not limit your focus to a single item, it ain't that simple. If it was then everyone would be better by doing that. All good shots are good aimers but not all good aimers are good shots. I love that kind of stuff.

I think the difference between watching and not watching the front sight is follow through. It's hard to develope visual patience when you aren't seeing and waiting for the front sight to lift. If your shooting without follow through an error is introduced that can be deminished shooting at close targets or if you have developed a very good index (auto pilot) from years of shooting. That index allows you to start to aquire the next target before the current shot is completed. The faster and better quality trigger pull aid the index so the sights aren't pulled off target for the fraction of a second that the focus is now placed on the next target.

I quess I'm comming from the direction of the new shooter that doesn't have any fundamentals. When I started I wanted to become a good shooter so I started shooting USPSA and PPC. I was slow at USPSA but shot all A's and was done shooting the 2 min 45 sec PPC sections in 30 sec. Warren Moore helped me a lot to work on fundamentals, and I started slowing down shooting PPC feeling the trigger on each shot and watching and waiting for the front sight to lift. I utilized the time better and my quality went way up. I started shooting USPSA faster and doing better as well but I stopped USPSA to shoot Action Pistol and PPC (to many time conflicts).

I'm thinking of comming back to USPSA and shooting a 627 in Limited 10 this summer after the Cup. For myself I think I'm going to try to stay with the front sight and try to get more speed from doing the things inbetween the shots sooner. I think after a certain time I will find a balance that takes away some follow through but I will still have that skill set when needed.

While I understand what you are saying, please understand I have little or no follow through. In the context of speed shooting, I certainly have no forced or conscious effort put towards having follow through. In fact, I train hard to not have excess follow through to the degree that I hope I have none. This is one of the reason's I struggle with Bullseye. Once the bullet has left the barrel I no longer control it. Any further effort at that time should be in preparation for the next event. You will not force follow through when you learn to get the shot off as soon as alignment occurs. When you are very good you will shoot without causing the gun to go out of alignment. Trying to create too much follow through will only make you slow.

As far as visual patience, I focus on making the gun motionless, but only to the degree that I see the sight picture well enough to insure the shot will hit in the area desired. I am working and area, not a specific spot on the target in most instances. The size of this area is what determines the accuracy needed for the shot. At Bianchi I have a relatively small area to hit, in IPSC it is larger, which allows me to be faster.

Coming from Bullseye and Bianchi, you will struggle with how little you need to see and hesitate to be fast. Most describe this as out of control. It is that level of control that a shooter attains that separates the scores. Slow and accurate to the extent that the clock times aren't relative is no better than fast with misses. The factor is the factor. While most would not agree it should not be this way, it often is! I personally wish missing was a bigger penalty. Others wish it were less.

This is why you must understand the scoring system well enough to know when going fast at the sake of points is preferable to slow and accurate.

As I said before, it ain't lack of aiming that causes speed to occur. Quite the opposite actually. We often focus on a single thing as our mantra to keep ourselves in control. That doesn't mean you will score well as control is a curious subject when it comes to score. At Bianchi and for sure bullseye you can consciously think through every detail most of the time and still do well. For IPSC there's just too much going on too quickly to try and control all elements that way.

I suggest we all get rid of the notion that we must have large amounts of follow through. By nature we tend to overdue anything we emphasize. This is what causes excess hesitation to occur after a shot. You may witness the sights moving from a shot, but to see them well enough before the next shot is generally under stressed.

May be some semantics in this, but I wanted to be clear.

As for the 627 in L10, Hopefully you will get a chance in the not too distant future to shoot that 8 shooter in Revolver division where it belongs.

[pskys2]

Esther, good luck on changing your lifestyle to compensate for the eating disorder.

Your goal of GM is a lofty one, just remember as in all things in this life the destination is but a goal, savoring the trip is the reward.

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. Vince Lombardi.

Enjoy the trip and relish your accomplishments, they are yours alone.

[toothguy]

Much of what

I'm not so sure? I've seen no bullseye shooter, at least a good one become truly fast. Bullseye is terrible training for IPSC and IPSC shooting is the most useless skill set a bullseye shooter could ever want to develop. One requires absolute precision at the cost of any real speed and the other penalizes slowness so much that missing fast is preferable.

The concept that you can just choose not to focus on the front sight and that will result in speed is an urban legend. Shooting fast doesn't mean not seeing the sight, sights, or aiming. It just requires you to do it quickly which normally means doing as little of it as you can get by with to save time.

Focusing on the front sight, depending on what you mean does not cause a shooter to be slow. Some of this might be getting a little confusing. I apologize.

Not sure how calling shots and developing a reliable index plays into all this yet. That would make an interesting discussion of it's own!

The things I wrote have little to do with the experience level of the shooter. They have to do with skill level. Any shooter will have to perform the balancing act of speed versus accuracy in the correct ratios to be good as an IPSC shooter. Or a Bianchi shooter. Or a bullseye shooter. Or cowboy fast draw shooter, etc. The balance point must be achieved but is not fixed.

Mental focus and mistakes are regularly blamed for failure where lack of skill should be. What is working as a mental focus point may vary, but the physical skills are pretty well defined and somewhat inflexible. They are finite and easy to identify. Just hard to do!! Moral of the story; get better and it gets easier!!

In my experience, only a couple shooters who started out as and became good precision shooters ever figured out how to let go of conscience control to the degree that they ever become good speed shooters. Brian is the only one that became top level, who I know.

The same is true in reverse. I've known few shooters who came up shooting the fast disciplines that became very good precision shooters. Doug Koenig is one of them.

I consider the Bianchi cup to be in the middle. It is a curious event as it is too fast for the precision guys and too accurate for the speed guys, as a rule. The nearest discipline to it is PPC. Many of those shooters cross over successfully. Interesting is that Phil Hemphill was a PPC national champion, did very well at Bianchi and is a National champion in bullseye now. IPSC is a little out of his wheelhouse but he has the other side covered pretty well from middle over.

As speed shooters crossing over go, I definitely came from the shoot fast and hope for the best side of things and decided to develop enough precision to be effective at the Bianchi Cup. Bullseye, although I am trying, is a long ways out of my wheelhouse. And my scores show that. This has little to do with aiming or looking at the sights. I have found it to be more of an issue of patience and trying to solve a problem in a manner that can't be achieved with the tools applied. I come from the side of the tracks that solves problems to a large degree by application of speed. This can't solve my bullseye dilemma. And it isn't directly about slowing down. But that's another discussion.

So, the thoughts I previously posted are still accurate as far as I can tell. Then again, someone will disagree.

I'm a lot off subject here, but when I gets to ramblin' I just can't stop!!

Again, do not limit your focus to a single item, it ain't that simple. If it was then everyone would be better by doing that. All good shots are good aimers but not all good aimers are good shots. I love that kind of stuff.

I think the difference between watching and not watching the front sight is follow through. It's hard to develope visual patience when you aren't seeing and waiting for the front sight to lift. If your shooting without follow through an error is introduced that can be deminished shooting at close targets or if you have developed a very good index (auto pilot) from years of shooting. That index allows you to start to aquire the next target before the current shot is completed. The faster and better quality trigger pull aid the index so the sights aren't pulled off target for the fraction of a second that the focus is now placed on the next target.

I quess I'm comming from the direction of the new shooter that doesn't have any fundamentals. When I started I wanted to become a good shooter so I started shooting USPSA and PPC. I was slow at USPSA but shot all A's and was done shooting the 2 min 45 sec PPC sections in 30 sec. Warren Moore helped me a lot to work on fundamentals, and I started slowing down shooting PPC feeling the trigger on each shot and watching and waiting for the front sight to lift. I utilized the time better and my quality went way up. I started shooting USPSA faster and doing better as well but I stopped USPSA to shoot Action Pistol and PPC (to many time conflicts).

I'm thinking of comming back to USPSA and shooting a 627 in Limited 10 this summer after the Cup. For myself I think I'm going to try to stay with the front sight and try to get more speed from doing the things inbetween the shots sooner. I think after a certain time I will find a balance that takes away some follow through but I will still have that skill set when needed.

While I understand what you are saying, please understand I have little or no follow through. In the context of speed shooting, I certainly have no forced or conscious effort put towards having follow through. In fact, I train hard to not have excess follow through to the degree that I hope I have none. This is one of the reason's I struggle with Bullseye. Once the bullet has left the barrel I no longer control it. Any further effort at that time should be in preparation for the next event. You will not force follow through when you learn to get the shot off as soon as alignment occurs. When you are very good you will shoot without causing the gun to go out of alignment. Trying to create too much follow through will only make you slow.

As far as visual patience, I focus on making the gun motionless, but only to the degree that I see the sight picture well enough to insure the shot will hit in the area desired. I am working and area, not a specific spot on the target in most instances. The size of this area is what determines the accuracy needed for the shot. At Bianchi I have a relatively small area to hit, in IPSC it is larger, which allows me to be faster.

Coming from Bullseye and Bianchi, you will struggle with how little you need to see and hesitate to be fast. Most describe this as out of control. It is that level of control that a shooter attains that separates the scores. Slow and accurate to the extent that the clock times aren't relative is no better than fast with misses. The factor is the factor. While most would not agree it should not be this way, it often is! I personally wish missing was a bigger penalty. Others wish it were less.

This is why you must understand the scoring system well enough to know when going fast at the sake of points is preferable to slow and accurate.

As I said before, it ain't lack of aiming that causes speed to occur. Quite the opposite actually. We often focus on a single thing as our mantra to keep ourselves in control. That doesn't mean you will score well as control is a curious subject when it comes to score. At Bianchi and for sure bullseye you can consciously think through every detail most of the time and still do well. For IPSC there's just too much going on too quickly to try and control all elements that way.

I suggest we all get rid of the notion that we must have large amounts of follow through. By nature we tend to overdue anything we emphasize. This is what causes excess hesitation to occur after a shot. You may witness the sights moving from a shot, but to see them well enough before the next shot is generally under stressed.

May be some semantics in this, but I wanted to be clear.

As for the 627 in L10, Hopefully you will get a chance in the not too distant future to shoot that 8 shooter in Revolver division where it belongs.

Everything you said is exactly what I thought, nothing unclear about it. I would imagine you could index on a target, close your eyes and shoot an acceptable group at 15 yards. Pointing the gun doesn't seem to be a problem for anyone, keeping it there as the trigger is pulled is. From what you are sayiing much of USPSA shooting doesn't require follow through, in fact it's detrimental to speed. I think in time a great index can be developed where the gun stays put as the trigger is pulled. Watching the sights all the way through the process and the guns return seems to be the best method to develope a neutral grip and trigger pull that doesn't effect sight alignment.

All the recent talk on the revolver forum has me thinking about USPSA again, I would love to shoot a revolver in revolver division but I will shoot limited 10 if I need to. I know when I return I will be slow, as I speed up I won't notice my follow through issues until I shoot PPC again.

Edited March 3, 2013 by toothguy

[TGO]

Ya, unfortunately, getting really fast creates a couple issues that are detrimental to higher levels of precision like PPC or Bianchi. I know, I'm struggling with bullseye, but probably not where you'd imagine. I'm OK at the 50 but struggle BIG TIME at timed and rapid!! That makes no sense! Oh well, we all fight our little wars..... Enjoyed the conversation.

[Esther]

Rob -

Mental focus and mistakes are regularly blamed for failure where lack of skill should be.

So true! As a tutor, I regularly come across parents who think that their kids "understand the material; they just don't test well." I have to explain that the reason their kids don't test well is that they don't understand the material.

Aglifter - Thanks, Brandon!

That's a very good question. The best explanation of compulsive behavior I've come across is the neuroscientist Jeff Schwartz's. At some point in a person's life, he or she learns to deal with a major stressor through some substance or behavior. The person's brain learns to pair the substance with relief. Later on, even if the initial stressor is removed, the person still feels compelled to turn to the addictive behavior to cope with all sorts of unrelated stressors.

Gobbling began as a way for me to cope with a major conflict in my life, but over time, has morphed into a way of dealing with legitimate fears (like not reaching an audience in my lifetime) as well as stupid stressors (like being stuck in traffic).

Today's shooting-related thankful items:

3) shooting at Reed's. I only got to shoot for 45 minutes, but I got to tell Dan, Jason, and Rick about my first match and show them pictures of my new gun! Jason joked (sort of) that soon I'll be sponsored. ;-)

4) dry-firing my draw and reloads

5) signing up for Louis Awerbuck's stage 2 class on March 23-24. After I take this, I'll be able to draw from the holster at Reed's!

Edited March 3, 2013 by Esther

[toothguy]

Ya, unfortunately, getting really fast creates a couple issues that are detrimental to higher levels of precision like PPC or Bianchi. I know, I'm struggling with bullseye, but probably not where you'd imagine. I'm OK at the 50 but struggle BIG TIME at timed and rapid!! That makes no sense! Oh well, we all fight our little wars..... Enjoyed the conversation.

It makes perfect sense, your probably following through at 50.

[grapemeister]

Thanks TGO for your thoughts. Letting go, as I think of it, and seeing only what I need to see is a hard thing for me to accept, and is a big hang up with my shooting. I'm one of those people that was taught and preached at for so many years to focus entirely on the front sight. It really is a hard thing to let go of, especially for hardheaded people like me. Sometimes when doing drills by myself at the range my transition speed improves tremendously when I see the sights instead of concentrating on a crystal clear front sight only. My hits are good, my speed improves, but I walk away unhappy, not convinced, and/or bewildered because it goes against what I was taught for so many years. Without even thinking about it, one day I blurted out to a fellow shooter " You know, when I go really fast, and I have good hits, it's like I'm seeing the sights in my peripheral. And, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing."

For me, I think a lot of the problem boils down to a trust issue, and maybe a little bit of a confidence issue mixed in, too. I often don't trust what I see unless it's that very familiar crystal clear front sight. This really hurts my transitions. I can move the eyes, and the gun fast to the next target, but I waste to much time on target waiting for the eye to focus on nothing but the front sight. I don't trust what is only necessary to break an accurate shot.

It's gotten better since I got into practical shooting a few years ago. I can now get away with a sight picture at 15 and 20 yards that I could barely get away with at 10 yards a couple of years ago. I'm getting the same hits, and at the same speed. Is "getting away with" a good way to put it?

Thanks so much.

[Fullauto_Shooter]

Ya, unfortunately, getting really fast creates a couple issues that are detrimental to higher levels of precision like PPC or Bianchi. I know, I'm struggling with bullseye, but probably not where you'd imagine. I'm OK at the 50 but struggle BIG TIME at timed and rapid!! That makes no sense! Oh well, we all fight our little wars..... Enjoyed the conversation.

Anyone else think it's hilarious that TGO has "Getting into shooting" as his Enos tagline?? :roflol:

[toothguy]

THE IMPACT OF VISION AND VISION TRAINING ON SPORT PERFORMANCE

Duane Knudson, Ph.D., Baylor University

and

Darlene A. Kluka, Ph.D., University of Central Oklahoma

Visual Attention

Vision may be the most variable and selective of all the senses. Attempting to observe fast movements that occur in sport places great demands on human vision. The eyes send information to the brain where it is integrated and interpreted as a three-dimensional (3D) phenomenon. The integration of visual information from both eyes into a 3D image is called fusion. Without a conscious effort to attend to something, the eyes will continuously move throughout the visual field. When something gets our visual attention we may focus both eyes on the object. This pause is called a fixation.

Fixations are important because focusing ability is limited to 3 degrees (Kluka, 1991). Our ability to see fine detail is limited to being able to focus both eyes on an object that we can keep within this small arc. The Thumb Rule can be used to get a feel for the size of this area of visual focus (Groot, Ortega, & Beltran, 1994). Extend your arm forward, holding your arm straight with your thumb pointing vertically. The width of your thumb in this position is a good approximation of the focus of your visual field. Note that as you read these words and you focus on one word, the words to either side in your peripheral vision are not in focus.

Because the focus of the visual field is so small, peripheral vision becomes very important, particularly in sport. Peripheral visual information is processed quickly to facilitate the detection of motion so that visual focus can be directed to other events. Peripheral vision is stressed in basketball because awareness of motion to the side or above allows the eyes and the athlete to react to more game events. Figure 1 illustrates a situation in a basketball game where the defender, with eyes fixed on the player with the ball, may be very sensitive to a cut down the lane by another player, but will not likely be able to determine detail (opponents identity or the quality of coverage by a teammate). If the opponent did not have the ball, a basketball coach might advise players to focus vision on the "midpoint" between the ball and the person they are defending to better utilize their peripheral vision.

I think this is a big part of what's going on. The eye, due to the limitation of vision and the desire of the brain to have accurate high focused information, is constantly moving. Training the brain to keep the eye in a small area goes against the natural tendency of the eye to react to motion. So essentially static, (precision shooters), are training there brain to be more tunnel visioned, and action shooters, (motion shooters), are training there brain to accept more information from there peripheral vision.

What you train for is what your brain will default to. Is it possible to train for both at the same time, or is a training transition period needed?

http://www.brianzins.com/2010/03/16/sight-alignment-or-better-yet-lets-call-it-aiming-with-iron-sights/

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=159336

Edited March 3, 2013 by toothguy

[Esther]

toothguy - Thanks for posting that! Very interesting that our region of visual focus is only about the width of a thumb.

Time is a very curious phenomenon. All that feels/is real* is this moment, but time flows too, and before you know it, the future is here.

I left business school and went on medical leave in November 2012. If I had just stuck to not gobbling then, I would be well on my way to healing by now. 3-6 months sounds like a long time, but it's really not. (How many times have you thought, "I can't believe it's March of 19xy already!"?)

And if I string together enough non-gobbly moments, then I will be in much better health 6 months from now. But to do that I have to stay in the present.

* There is an interesting philosophical debate about whether the present moment is all that exists, or whether all of space-time tenselessly exists. (i.e., are the past and future real even though they're not right now, the way that Antarctica is real even though it's not right here??? )

Tonight's shooting-related thankful item:

6) dry-firing shooting on the move. How do you guys call your shots while dry-firing on the move? (I know it's the same as calling shots otherwise, but when I'm moving fast and the sights are wobbling, it's hard for me to know precisely where my shots would land...)

Edited March 4, 2013 by Esther

[toothguy]

Something I tell myself. Most times you don't have control over things only your reaction to them, happiness is a choice.

[GuildSF4]

5) signing up for Louis Awerbuck's stage 2 class on March 23-24. After I take this, I'll be able to draw from the holster at Reed's!

Cool. (Every thing I have heard about Louis has been good also.)

[lumpygravy]

3) ....show them pictures of my new gun! ....

Do tell - and show!

[Esther]

Jon - I created a Flickr account just for you! Here is a picture of my new gun. She's a competition version XDM 9mm with a trigger job.

She's in transit to Metal Dog Tactical (thanks Alex! ), where she's getting a single shot exemption and having her 19-round mags blocked. And then I have to wait 10 days because we're in CA.

Tonight's shooting-related thankful item:

6) dry-firing at neon post-its that I pasted around the house. I worked on getting my first shot off quickly without disturbing my sights, quickly making up "misses," and firing once I have an acceptable instead of perfect sight picture.

I wish 3M would make post-its of USPSA targets and no-shoots. :-)

Edited March 5, 2013 by Esther

[Aglifter]

You can probably get a local print shop to make some up.

[lumpygravy]

Jon - I created a Flickr account just for you! Here is a picture of my new gun. She's a competition version XDM 9mm with a trigger job.

She's in transit to Metal Dog Tactical (thanks Alex! ), where she's getting a single shot exemption and having her 19-round mags blocked. And then I have to wait 10 days because we're in CA.

Booyah!!!

That's a nice looking gun. Can't wait to see you shoot it!

Did you get a few additional 10-round magazines?

[TJ1911]

Nice looking gun!!! I'll have to add you as a contact on Flickr...

[diehli]

Jon - I created a Flickr account just for you! Here is a picture of my new gun. She's a competition version XDM 9mm with a trigger job.

Looks kinda like mine.

Note that you'll need to remove the grip tape on the slide to shoot it in Production.