the secret to recoil control?

[motosapiens]

where do you guys find all this extra time to do all this non-shooting stuff as well as your shooting stuff so you can get better at shooting? Do any of you have jobs or anything ... ? With live fire 3x/week & dry fire 6x/week & reloading so I can shoot and 2 matches/month I don't have time to do all that other stuff ... I have to get better at shooting by well, shooting ....

imho live fire 3x/week is more than I can sustain. once a week is plenty.

I dryfire every day, play hockey 2-3x/week on the way to work, lift a couple times a week at lunch, and reload for 15 mins every day while relaxing.

leaves plenty of time for wine tasting, homebrewing, dirtbiking, hiking and running with the dogs, gourmet cooking, camping, reading and a few other things. Of course i was smart enough to move somewhere that all those things are conveniently located nearby (and has no humidity or cockroaches).

As you well know, unlike the rest of you, I have absolutely no natural shooting talent. If I only shot once/week I'd of quit a long time ago because I'd never have shown any progress ...

lol, I have athletic talent, but it doesn't feel like I have shooting talent. I've been working my tail off for several years now. Last year it felt like I really started to progress, which I blame on listening to steve anderson.

but in your honor, i snuck an short extra live fire session today. Last weekend it felt like I was blinking alot and not able to really call alot of first shots, so burned through 110 rounds just working on that. Some at the berm, some at some 2" dots, some at the upper a-zone. Took less than 90 mins from leaving the house to back at the house.

Edited January 9, 2016 by motosapiens

[Jake Di Vita]

I started out in C class and spent about 2 years in B class. I don't have much natural talent either. I've also probably shot a grand total of 60,000 - 75,000 rounds over the course of 15 years with the majority of them being in a 2 or 3 year span. I think the most I ever shot in a year was only something like 15,000. I shot about 5,000 rounds last year and every one of them was in a match. I have however done a rather obscene amount of dry fire.

It'd be nice to get 8 hours a night, but I have too much crap I need to work on to be able to sleep that long.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[grapemeister]

Strength?

What happened to "relaxed and neutral"?

(I've been out of touch with shooting, so might have missed some developments since 'Practical Shooting: Beyond Fundamentals')

It's been about five years since I've read the book, and it was borrowed, but I'm pretty sure you may have misread or misunderstood what he was saying. I'm pretty sure he recommended a firm and neutral grip. If he used the word relaxed he most likely was talking about having no tension. I guess you can say that's like being relaxed.

I don't know about you but at first that seemed counterintuitive, but I quickly remembered the same concept being taught in Judo classes as a kid and some self defense courses later in life. Grip hard but with no tension in the arms and shoulders.

Anyhow, on the forums Brian has talked quite a bit about the importance of gripping the gun hard.

[Miranda]

relaxed...

We have Brain to ask what he meant....

I took it as your grip was a fundamental part of shooting.

The other thing is that I have always felt the pistol worked far better

if you had a no nonsense grip on the ...ummm... handle.

You can have a good solid grip, and if you are so firm that your muscles are shaking,

you will hurt accuracy.

so exercising your hands is a good idea for finding an easy hand to lead your targeting.

miranda

[grapemeister]

Posted 19 October 2015 - 03:33 PM

By "relaxed," I meant "not tense." I'd grip the pistol as hard as I could - with equal pressure from both hands - without introducing any tremor or "vibration."

That's what Brian wrote for a similar topic a few months back...same forum. Sorry, I don't know how to paste links for other topics.

[GrumpyOne]

Posted 19 October 2015 - 03:33 PMBy "relaxed," I meant "not tense." I'd grip the pistol as hard as I could - with equal pressure from both hands - without introducing any tremor or "vibration."That's what Brian wrote for a similar topic a few months back...same forum. Sorry, I don't know how to paste links for other topics.

This the one, Grape?

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=223068&hl=%2Bby+%2Brelaxed%2C+%2Bmeant#entry2486173

[grapemeister]

Posted 19 October 2015 - 03:33 PMBy "relaxed," I meant "not tense." I'd grip the pistol as hard as I could - with equal pressure from both hands - without introducing any tremor or "vibration."That's what Brian wrote for a similar topic a few months back...same forum. Sorry, I don't know how to paste links for other topics.

This the one, Grape?

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=223068&hl=%2Bby+%2Brelaxed%2C+%2Bmeant#entry2486173

Yep..Thanks

[perttime]

Posted 19 October 2015 - 03:33 PM

By "relaxed," I meant "not tense." I'd grip the pistol as hard as I could - with equal pressure from both hands - without introducing any tremor or "vibration."

That's what Brian wrote for a similar topic a few months back...same forum. Sorry, I don't know how to paste links for other topics.

That makes sense.

And with some strength reserves, you can use a firmer grip without being tense.

[Nimitz]

I started out in C class and spent about 2 years in B class. I don't have much natural talent either. I've also probably shot a grand total of 60,000 - 75,000 rounds over the course of 15 years with the majority of them being in a 2 or 3 year span. I think the most I ever shot in a year was only something like 15,000. I shot about 5,000 rounds last year and every one of them was in a match. I have however done a rather obscene amount of dry fire.

It'd be nice to get 8 hours a night, but I have too much crap I need to work on to be able to sleep that long.

No offense to you and Moto but given how "little" actual shooting training you do relative to what I do, and how much better both of your are than me, that's obviously natural talent whether you're comfortable admitting it or not. In the past I could have probably explained away the difference to just not knowing what I was doing WRT training correctly but I don't have that excuse anymore. And don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying you guys aren't working hard, but so am I and I don't come close to matching your results ... Edited January 9, 2016 by Nimitz

[Jake Di Vita]

I started out in C class and spent about 2 years in B class. I don't have much natural talent either. I've also probably shot a grand total of 60,000 - 75,000 rounds over the course of 15 years with the majority of them being in a 2 or 3 year span. I think the most I ever shot in a year was only something like 15,000. I shot about 5,000 rounds last year and every one of them was in a match. I have however done a rather obscene amount of dry fire.

It'd be nice to get 8 hours a night, but I have too much crap I need to work on to be able to sleep that long.

No offense to you and Moto but given how "little" actual shooting training you do relative to what I do, and how much better both of your are than me, that's obviously natural talent whether you're comfortable admitting it or not. In the past I could have probably explained away the difference to just not knowing what I was doing WRT training correctly but I don't have that excuse anymore. And don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying you guys aren't working hard, but so am I and I don't come close to matching your results ...

Considering your uspsa number and the first match you shot being in 2012, I'd be comfortable saying I have dry fired 10x as much as you have without a sweat, and that's being conservative because it's likely a lot more than that. There was a span of 9 months where I dry fired for 4 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the entirety of the 9 months. Not a single day off. And this was all done before you even touched a gun in uspsa competition. My hands have bled from dry firing more than once, have yours? I'd be surprised if your entire life of dry fire matched what I did in less than a year, and I've been dry firing for over 15 years now.

So no, it isn't obviously natural talent and my comfort has nothing to do with it. There was nothing natural about me being able to shoot. There was a metric f--- ton of work with most of it being done after midnight or before 7 am when most sane people are sleeping.

I didn't want to go here but saying my ability is due to natural talent is offensive to someone who has worked as hard as I have and I'm not willing to take it. You don't come close to matching my results because you haven't come close to matching my work.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[motosapiens]

I started out in C class and spent about 2 years in B class. I don't have much natural talent either. I've also probably shot a grand total of 60,000 - 75,000 rounds over the course of 15 years with the majority of them being in a 2 or 3 year span. I think the most I ever shot in a year was only something like 15,000. I shot about 5,000 rounds last year and every one of them was in a match. I have however done a rather obscene amount of dry fire.

It'd be nice to get 8 hours a night, but I have too much crap I need to work on to be able to sleep that long.

No offense to you and Moto but given how "little" actual shooting training you do relative to what I do, and how much better both of your are than me, that's obviously natural talent whether you're comfortable admitting it or not. In the past I could have probably explained away the difference to just not knowing what I was doing WRT training correctly but I don't have that excuse anymore. And don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying you guys aren't working hard, but so am I and I don't come close to matching your results ...

I dryfire 30-60 mins every day, and shoot 1200-2000 live rounds each month. That doesn't seem like little actual shooting to me, but I do believe I have been blessed with good reactions and vision and analytic ability. but I wouldn't sell yourself short. You have some national class steel times that I can't come near, and I can appreciate them since I run (and shoot) a steel match every wednesday during the nice part of the year. I bet if you focused as much on uspsa, you would have similar results.

One thing i have noticed about shooting is that it is very easy to waste time training. I have definitely done my share of that, but it seems like I am training more smarterer the last 6 months or so.

[motosapiens]

I didn't want to go here but saying my ability is due to natural talent is offensive to someone who has worked as hard as I have and I'm not willing to take it. You don't come close to matching my results because you haven't come close to matching my work.

it is pretty obvious that natural talent exists in every field of human endeavour. some stuff just comes easier to some people. that doesnt mean those people aren't working hard, but I would hesitate to say i work harder than someone else just because my results are better.

I don't really concern myself with that stuff tho. all i can do is try to improve myself bit by bit.

[Jake Di Vita]

If I came into this at a M or GM level, I might agree with you, but I didn't. I sucked as a shooter for many years and I'm sure some people would say I still do. Trust me, it did NOT come naturally or easily. It's not like you need world class reactions or vision to become a GM. Not even close really.

In this particular endeavor of action pistol shooting, work matters a whole hell of a lot more than anything else. In most cases in this sport, the guy that puts more time in (whether daily or over the course of years) will outperform the other guy.

Sure, talent exists but no amount of talent can replace effort and I'm not willing to say talent has that large of a role in how well I can shoot a pistol. I've seen too many talented people fail miserably and I've seen too many shooters who had no talent but worked their balls off and got good.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[motosapiens]

Sure, talent exists but no amount of talent can replace effort and I'm not willing to say talent has that large of a role in how well I can shoot a pistol. I've seen too many talented people fail miserably and quit and I've seen too many shooters who had no talent but worked their balls off and got good.

fair enough. for sure talent and no work will not get you very far. It is clear from your posts that you put alot of thought and effort into your shooting and have done so for years, and I appreciate your willingness to share what you have learned.

At the same time I can totally sympathize with nimitz because I've watched people who seemed to be working less make more progress than me, and it can be frustrating. I can only conclude that I was not working smart enough at that time.

Edited January 9, 2016 by motosapiens

[Jake Di Vita]

Sure, talent exists but no amount of talent can replace effort and I'm not willing to say talent has that large of a role in how well I can shoot a pistol. I've seen too many talented people fail miserably and quit and I've seen too many shooters who had no talent but worked their balls off and got good.

fair enough. for sure talent and no work will not get you very far. It is clear from your posts that you put alot of thought and effort into your shooting and have done so for years, and I appreciate your willingness to share what you have learned.

At the same time I can totally sympathize with nimitz because I've watched people who seemed to be working less make more progress than me. I can only conclude that I was not working smart enough at that time.

I can agree with that and I appreciate it. Working smart is absolutely important, it's also hard to tell just how much work someone is putting in to something. Compared to most GM's, I haven't put a fraction of the live fire work in that they have, but I've probably dry fired orders of magnitude more which is the only reason I can even hang anywhere close.

[a matt]

Tks, I found answer when I read your post. Cheers

So let ask you both this, how do you train smart? What did or are you doing different than say just following SA's books or BS's books or working on your weak points that you know need improvement? Thanks guys.

Edited January 10, 2016 by a matt

[jroback]

I started out in C class and spent about 2 years in B class.

These are my absolute favorite kinds of stories, where years of struggle are spent chasing a goal. Its especially cool when considering the level of skills you've developed after all that work (I like the vid where you catch the mag!) Thanks for showing shooters like me (who are still way back on the skills curve) that it can be done.

[Hi-Power Jack]

Good stuff ...

[Jake Di Vita]

Tks, I found answer when I read your post. Cheers

So let ask you both this, townie do you train smart? What did or are you doing different than say just following SA's books or BS's books or working on your weak points that you know need improvement? Thanks guys.

Not sure if you were asking me or not but I'll throw my two cents in.

I did have Steve's book many years ago, but Ben's didn't exist before I got the G. I picked up copies of Ben's stuff in the last year or two and I think he's done a phenomenal job. People that follow the stuff he's put out there will get better. No doubt about it. It turns out that for me I don't react great to real regimented structure as far as practice programming goes.

The way I decide what to practice usually depends on a few things. The first thing is anything I may have ran into at a match that gave me trouble. If I run into a shooting position and have to take extra shots because I couldn't get stable, you can bet I'll be practicing that same exact position in dry fire at home. Ditto goes for if I throw a mike or no shoot at a match, I'll throw some dry fire of the same scenario in there.

The second thing that factors into my decision is how dry-fire has been going. If I notice I'm having real bad issues with something as I start practicing, I'm usually going to just drill away at that thing maybe to the exclusion of everything else if I'm not happy with how progress is going.

The third thing is I try to set a overarching yearly goal that I put work into every session. This year that goal is transitions to steel. I'm just too damn slow and inconsistent there so I work on it daily.

The last thing is I like to devote like 10 minutes a day to just random dry fire. I'll walk or run through my dry fire area or even the rest of the house and just use anything that jumps out at me as a target. I'll throw in random draws, reloads, and start positions. I've done a lot on the stairs. It'll be completely random and it's fun, but I think it's a way to give some exposure to stuff that I wouldn't get with just regular segmented practice.

When we talk about training smarter and getting more bang for the buck, with me that ended up meaning I need to train at very high speed. This is risky as bad habits have a tendency to creep in doing this. I think I'm uniquely suited for this because of the amount of time I've spent training my eyes to absorb information. I coached crossfit for more than 10 years, that was a lot of 1 on 1 / small groups and 5 years in a gym setting (yes I know people hate crossfit, please God let this not turn into that circlejerk). I take a lot of pride in my ability to coach human movement, I wasn't one of those coaches who would say "there's the workout" and then sit down and stare at my phone. When I would coach a class of 20 people by myself at 530 in the morning I would have to be able to see tiny faults out of the corner of my eye from across the room and be able to see them clearly enough that I can shout an actionable cue immediately. After doing this for thousands of hours and developing a pretty good ability to direct attention, there just isn't a ton that slips by me anymore and I think this is what allows me to train really fast all the time and still be able to notice and address the mistakes I'm making.

As far as the amount of work I'll do on specific skills, I usually just kinda go til it feels like I'm ready to move on. It's super subjective, but like I said, I don't do real well with ordered programming. I hardly even use a timer anymore. I don't need par times much because I'm always trying to be right on that edge.

That ended up a lot more than two cents lol.

I started out in C class and spent about 2 years in B class.

These are my absolute favorite kinds of stories, where years of struggle are spent chasing a goal. Its especially cool when considering the level of skills you've developed after all that work (I like the vid where you catch the mag!) Thanks for showing shooters like me (who are still way back on the skills curve) that it can be done.

Thank you, that means a lot. It absolutely can be done, just keep workin.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[Nimitz]

I started out in C class and spent about 2 years in B class. I don't have much natural talent either. I've also probably shot a grand total of 60,000 - 75,000 rounds over the course of 15 years with the majority of them being in a 2 or 3 year span. I think the most I ever shot in a year was only something like 15,000. I shot about 5,000 rounds last year and every one of them was in a match. I have however done a rather obscene amount of dry fire.

It'd be nice to get 8 hours a night, but I have too much crap I need to work on to be able to sleep that long.

No offense to you and Moto but given how "little" actual shooting training you do relative to what I do, and how much better both of your are than me, that's obviously natural talent whether you're comfortable admitting it or not. In the past I could have probably explained away the difference to just not knowing what I was doing WRT training correctly but I don't have that excuse anymore. And don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying you guys aren't working hard, but so am I and I don't come close to matching your results ...

Considering your uspsa number and the first match you shot being in 2012, I'd be comfortable saying I have dry fired 10x as much as you have without a sweat, and that's being conservative because it's likely a lot more than that. There was a span of 9 months where I dry fired for 4 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the entirety of the 9 months. Not a single day off. And this was all done before you even touched a gun in uspsa competition. My hands have bled from dry firing more than once, have yours? I'd be surprised if your entire life of dry fire matched what I did in less than a year, and I've been dry firing for over 15 years now.

So no, it isn't obviously natural talent and my comfort has nothing to do with it. There was nothing natural about me being able to shoot. There was a metric f--- ton of work with most of it being done after midnight or before 7 am when most sane people are sleeping.

I didn't want to go here but saying my ability is due to natural talent is offensive to someone who has worked as hard as I have and I'm not willing to take it. You don't come close to matching my results because you haven't come close to matching my work.

Not trying to insult you and I was going to ask what your definition of a "crab ton of dry fire" was since I know a lot of people who's perception is that they are spending a lot of time doing something but compared to the average they are not ... Since you explained the extreme amount of effort you have put into it it's now clear to me where you are on the natural talent curve ...

I wish I could figure out a way to dry fire 3-4 hrs/day since I know I would probably progress a lot faster. It's not a 'desire' thing with me, it's trying to rearrange my life some more. I've got a pretty good routine now for being able to dry fire 1 hr/day 6x/week but that will need to change if I expect to reach my goals since my late start means I probably can't take another 15 yrs to improve ...

[Jake Di Vita]

Not trying to insult you and I was going to ask what your definition of a "crab ton of dry fire" was since I know a lot of people who's perception is that they are spending a lot of time doing something but compared to the average they are not ... Since you explained the extreme amount of effort you have put into it it's now clear to me where you are on the natural talent curve ...

I wish I could figure out a way to dry fire 3-4 hrs/day since I know I would probably progress a lot faster. It's not a 'desire' thing with me, it's trying to rearrange my life some more. I've got a pretty good routine now for being able to dry fire 1 hr/day 6x/week but that will need to change if I expect to reach my goals since my late start means I probably can't take another 15 yrs to improve ...

I understand, the whole natural talent thing is just a real hot button with me. Sorry that I kind of jumped on your back.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't recommend doing what I did, I was just trying to illustrate my point. Yes I made a large amount of progress in those 9 months but it was at great cost to other areas of my life. If you can consistently do an hour a day 6 days a week, it won't take 15 years. If you've been doing that for awhile now (6 months at least) and still aren't happy with your progress, it might be time to switch things up a little bit and see if that won't help you break through the plateau. I know with me I would see plateaus in my training, then after a little while all of a sudden something would click and I'd jump 3 or 4 steps forward.

I think that you can get really damn good at an hour a day..

Edited January 9, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[Nimitz]

No worries, I was starting to think I needed to change things up myself ... And Moto is right, I have been making super fast progress in the world of Steel Challenge open rim fire .... Using the soon to be introduced new classification system for SC, I made rim fire GM last month and also shot at my last sanctioned match in Dec what according to the Steel Challenge match records was the 9th fastest time in 2015 for any Tier II or Tier III match, including the World Speed Shooting Championships in Nov. It's in the world of center fire that I'm not happy with my progress .... To be fair I haven't been putting in near the same level of effort but I just tend to discount success in rim fire becuase 'it's just a 22' ....

I also tend to forget that most of the really good action shooters have been at this a significantly longer time then I have ( 4 years) and started at a significantly younger age than I did as well but I just hate making excuses ...

Edited January 10, 2016 by Nimitz

[a matt]

Jake, did you do curles with that damn trigger finger you got? . Lol. But really, thanks for all this good info here gents. This has help me to understand more than one thing.

[CHA-LEE]

I think people get too wrapped around the axel on specific training drills, metrics, and what others are doing. For me it boils down to having the ability to objectively assess what you are doing, identify issues, and deploy solutions. If you can't do that and rely on others to point out issues and provide solutions then your progress will always limited to what is spoon fed to you.

Work on the self assessment skills first and optimize them. If you do that, then the sky is the limit becuase ALL of your training will be effective. Without this all you do is blindly practice random skills in the hope that unfocused reps will improve your skills.

People rarely embrace this fact because it takes a significant amount of effort and you need to check your ego at the door.

[a matt]

Well stated solid advice Charlie, thanks .