Burning through a stage

[Locomotion]

I don't have trouble with transitions both GMs I shoot with observed that I'm taking too long for my second shot. So if Anderson's premise for the exercise is to shoot for speed, then I do need to do the Bill drills before I choose to shoot for speed. Aiming gets in the way of my speed.

[Nimitz]

Hmmmm ... I probably take too long between shots as well but on a relative basis splits only get you so far ... Unless your splits are like 1 sec or more dropping from say a .4 to a .25 just won't do it when you can shave whole secs off your stage time by learning to transition quicker and move more efficiently trough a stage ... It's amazing how much time most of us waste on a stage which has nothing to do with our split times .

[daves_not_here]

...Aiming gets in the way of my speed.

I think you should ask the GM's you shoot with how they deal with aiming getting in the way of their speed.

I think you'll get some very interesting answers that are tailored to your current perspective. They have observed your shooting and it would be valuable to you to hear what they say.

The higher level shooters I shoot with give me critiques like telling me when I get "a little frisky" when I throw shots and also point out what went fast. This eliminates the "luck" of good hits and biases in my own perspective of how I shot. Very valuable.

Post what they say, I'd like to hear about it.

DNH

Edited March 18, 2013 by daves_not_here

[Locomotion]

They have said to do the Bill Drills I am taking too long for my second shot on close targets. I have great help on stage breakdown, transitions and I've for solid mag changes. My finger needs to do some running.

[Chris iliff]

In a Manny class, I was surprised to learn that Manny's splits were not that different than my own. Very little on splits to teach because once you figure out what it takes to get an A at the various distances, everyone is going to have about the same splits.

Now if you ain't at that point, I'd listen to Mr. Anderson. Bill drills are great.

[Nimitz]

yeah, it's just not all that hard to get your splits down to around .2 but at that point there really is nothing left to gain. Watch some of the shooters who have faster splits and I'll bet that unless they are solid A or M shooters they are wasting a lot of time in other areas of the stage. Chris is spot on, a lot of the top shooters, particularily those who shoot limited or production, don't have blazing fast splits but at ULSC their times are 30% faster than the rank and file shooter. It just doesn't look like they are going 'fast'.

At the FL State Championship last month I shot a perfect score on a 15 target stage in 32.34 secs which I was thrilled about. My spilts were typical for me at this point ~.3-.35. Frank Garcia also shot that stage but did it in 17.71 secs. His splits would have had to have been 1 sec faster than me on all 15 targets to account for the difference if splits were important. This of course was impossible. The reason he was almost 15 secs faster than me was how much better he was at moving throught the stage and transitioning to/from each target.

[Locomotion]

There is no shortage of USPSA GMs in Arizona that one can observe and that help shooters. There are 28+ at Rio Salado alone. Imagine that.

[my00wrx1]

This might seem like a silly question but does anyone have any tips on increasing your speed as you move through a stage.

It feels like I'm moving at an 'ok' speed at the time however I took some video recently and I'm not moving any better than a fast walk or slow jog. I think in part it's because the movement distances are relatively short, say 2 to 5 meters, and I'm distracted by mag changes.

I feel like I need someone standing next to me yelling 'now move your arse' once I've finished shooting from a position. Has anyone else had this problem?

[mknpwr]

This might seem like a silly question but does anyone have any tips on increasing your speed as you move through a stage.

It feels like I'm moving at an 'ok' speed at the time however I took some video recently and I'm not moving any better than a fast walk or slow jog. I think in part it's because the movement distances are relatively short, say 2 to 5 meters, and I'm distracted by mag changes.

I feel like I need someone standing next to me yelling 'now move your arse' once I've finished shooting from a position. Has anyone else had this problem?

Yes, all the time but I'm getting faster. I found that I had to tell myself to move faster in my head. That doesn't work if you don't have a solid plan for the stage. I've blown through stages at a pace fast for me and bombed others when I forget my stage plan. That slows me down because I'm not thinking, faster faster, I'm thinking, what was the next target, did I forget one?

Sent from my rotary dial phone

[kevin c]

I am typically 10 to 15 percent slower than the M and GM shooters at my club (I'm A class). Some of that is in the splits and the platform (Production vs Open), but a lot of it is not being able to "release the Kraken" as my friend Short Round will say. I like being in control of myself, but it's a hindrance as much as a help.

At our recent sectional I was having a frustrating match, and decided to just let it all hang out on a field course with two bear trap activated swingers. Normally I would have wanted to be very much in control, getting off deliberate shots with clean sight pictures, since two of the arrays, including the last, were 11 rounds each including steel where the gun goes dry. Instead, I went as fast as I could, accepting less on the sight pics and moving aggressively. I ended up, timewise, ahead of almost the entire field, including the Open guys. The points would have been good as well, if I hadn't knee capped a Colt steel that wouldn't go down as my gun ran dry.

It was a real revelation.

Edited May 13, 2013 by kevin c

[Nimitz]

This past Feb at the Fl State Championship I shot a field course stage clean, 26/26 in 34 secs. I was very happy with this as this was my first level II match. Frank Garcia (the Prod div wiinner) shot the stage in about 17.5 secs with 3 C's. Was he running twice as fast as me? Nope. We're his splits 5 times as fast as mine? doubtful. So what accounts for the difference? The efficiency with which he shoots the stage. He was ALWAYS moving, shooting targets the micro sec they were visible and exiting a position as his last shot was fired.

That's when I decided I needed to take Steve Anderson's class. After the 2 days I had a legitimate 1sec draw and on the final exercise of the course I shot the Mimi stage a full 6 secs faster than on day one, and we're talking about going from 21 secs to 15 secs here after just 2 days of instruction. It has changed both the focus of my training and how I shoot matches.

At Area 6 last month I shot the classifier 19% higher than my current class because of the speed increases I learned, not by being any more accurate ....

[Tuflehundon]

I got my classification last month. I ended up being a high C, almost a B. We did a event at my local club were we do 6 stages on a Saturday morning and 5 of them are classifiers. I did well on 3 of them and screwed up on 2 of them. 1 or 2 more decent classifiers and I should make B. (hopefully).

I have been shooting with a lot of shooters that are better than I am at my local range. Few A's, couple of M's and a GM or 2. Really like shooting the same squad as them. I have been able to learn from them were I was wasting a lot of time on stages. And I was wasting a lot, mostly due to comfort zone.

Friend of mine that I shoot with is a D class open shooter. I think she could be a high C or B if she pushed herself some. Been talking to her about that lately.

[HeinrichDerLowe]

There are few things I relish more than "burning" through a stage. While it often works to my advantage, some of my blunders turn out to be, well... spectacular. If only I could learn the throttle control necessary to cull that inevitable disaster from my weekly match.

[coordinator]

After reading this post I'm going to push myself at the next match. It will take me out of my comfort zone, however I want to see where it leads me. What will I see? I'm excited to see what I see.

[Nimitz]

The time to push yourself outside of your comfort zone is in training, not during a match. Match time is for letting the subconscious take over and just shoot without thinking about what you are doing or trying new things. The more conscious thought during a match, generally the poorer your results will be ....

[tngunnut69]

Last month at the Tennessee State Sectional I found myself pushing pretty hard through the stages and not doing that well. The last stage of the match, before the buzzer, I told myself "See the sights & shoot my speed". I won the stage! For a B class limited shooter, shooting with the best shooters in the State....WOW, I'm on to something here. This weekend i shot another local match that is a pretty big affair aound here. I started the match "shooting my speed" and was not doing too bad. As the match progressed i started pushing hard again and trying to burn through the stages! Not only was I missing targets but, I was also having huge mental errors throughout the stages. I'm not sure how to get my brain to realize that i don't need to "burn down" every stage but i like the idea of "pushing" during practice and falling back on the "subconsious" to get through the match. Now if i can just get this drilled into my thick skull!! Great Thread!!

[Tuflehundon]

The time to push yourself outside of your comfort zone is in training, not during a match. Match time is for letting the subconscious take over and just shoot without thinking about what you are doing or trying new things. The more conscious thought during a match, generally the poorer your results will be ....

He may be talking about a local monthly match. I don't really get to practice due to work, other than at the local matches.

I don't shoot any big matches right now, but that will change next year now that ammo is easier to find.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Tuflehundon

[sarge450]

Any advice on finding the happy medium between being to comfortable and burning through the stage. Last year was my first year, I was doing ok but was really not pushing myself. As the year went on and I got a few matches under my belt I thought I was ready to speed it up. What I ended up with was being inconsistent. Some stages I was doing ok with the added speed, while others I was getting Mikes or D's on targets that I should have made good shots on.

I was having a lot of trouble finding that thin line between sitting there comfortable, and going to fast and blowing the entire stage. I am hoping to correct that this year with more practice and more matches under my belt.

[benos]

if you allow what you are seeing and feeling to dictate your pace, you will shoot to your capacity.

[h4444]

if you allow what you are seeing and feeling to dictate your pace, you will shoot to your capacity.

Where's the dang like button.......

[ak_tech]

Since reading this thried I have tried opening up and not shooting so conservatively. At first I tried just shooting for time, but admittedly found it very hard to not try to get good hits too. When I got the feel for that I did everything else just as fast but shot a little slower, also incorporating more visualization. As a result I really imploded my stage time and HF and have won overall production the last seven matches here in Tucson and at Tuesday night steel at Rio Salado. My classifiers also went from about 75% ish to above 80%, my last one was 89%. I was at the stage of my shooting where this is exactly what I needed. I really recommend people give this a try and hopefully it will make as big difference for you too .

[Mat Price]

If the timer is running and your not shooting your your not gaining points. It's not how fast you shoot it's how fast you get ready to shoot. By driving the gun in transition, hitting your shooting platform going through the firing cycle... Ect.... Push push push in training. You will expand your control zone. Use the matches to try and compete at just under your expanded control zone. For example I can turn and draw and fire 6 shots on target at 10 yards on avg pushing just recently at about 1.9 with mostly c's and a's Sometimes a D. When I shot roscoe round up today (string 1 turn draw 6 shots between two no shoots) I knew just how hard to push with out being out of control which was 2.5 5a 1 c.

So my point is find your limit so that you can work right under it but bordering on past your control zone and keep working it until your limit becomes your new control zone... Then rinse and repeat

[boomerhc9]

Wow, this thread really describes what I'm seeing. At my last match, I pushed really hard to see my sights on target. I remember just thinking I need to hit, but run and reload faster. I did pretty well compared to how I normally do. My reloads still suck, and I had a really bad double feed on the classifier, but my movement felt a lot better.

One of the shooters said he could tell I had been practicing, but I have only shot my shotgun in the last 5 months. The only pistol practice has been an hour of dry fire every weekend. This really is a mental game.

One difference is every match I get real nervous on the way to the match, and just before I shoot. It's slowly going away, but is still definitely there. It realy affects my first stage in IPSC and steel challenge, even though I love shooting, it always hits me. I don't know if it's because growing up it was pounded into me that guns are "dangerous". I also love heights and want to try it someday, but would probably be too nervous to skydive.

[DoubleL]

I think the biggest gains can be had from being able to breeze by say one or maybe even two shooting positions in a longer COF and pick them all up while moving. On shorter COF's it won't help as much but gains can be huge on longer stages with efficient movement and stopping as few times as possible.

I made my best run ever on a stage that was just evil. Texas Star on one end, next to a popper activated clamshell, propeller plate rack in the middle buried by barrels, poppers deep in the bay adjacent to it, with another popper activated clamshell and open array on far end to finish it off. 3 or 4 "gotcha" targets buried in on long diagonals across the COF too. A real nightmare for production! I watched an M level PD shooter easily remove close to 15 seconds off my time by being able to sort of slide in and out of position rather than lock up at each spot and side step to get the diagonal lines to the gotcha targets. It was like he almost never stopped moving except briefly at the PPP. He even took the open array at the end on his approach to the clamshell and squeezed his mag change in between activating the clamshell and shooting at it.

After watching that, it is really obvious that efficiency in movement is where the gains can be made.

[lknbigfish]

some great info here