IDPA dry fire - with or without vest?

[zhangla]

New shooter here.

I am reading 2 books to guide me in dry fire traininig: "Your Competition Handgun Training Program" (by Michael Seeklander) and "Refinement and Repetition" (by Steve Anderson). I think both books are great but they cater more to ISPC/USPSA.

I am curious when IDPA shooters follow the drills from those books, should we wear or not wear vest? My gut feeling is yes we should wear the vest in dry fire whenever applicable, because 90% of the matches require concealment. However, I am also concerned that with large amount of dry fire training using the vest, is it possible the muscle memory eventually won't allow draw/reload to be as efficient/fast as when no vest is needed?

I want to hear your thoughts, especially from people who have been following the drills in those books for IDPA. Thanks.

[elguapo]

First of all, very few people give the brain enough credit.

Just because you learn how to do B really really well does not mean that you will suck at doing A which is almost like B

My advice, ditch the concealment when you start working on a new skill. As you start getting it down, add concealment and start refining both together.

BTW, why are you wearing a vest? Aren't your regular street clothes concealment enough?

[MWP]

If you shoot IDPA do the drills with the vest on.

Practice for the sport you're shooting.

Edited October 17, 2014 by MWP

[jroback]

i have only competed in IDPA, and i started with the MWP mindset: I dressed exactly like i a match including hat, glasses and vest. Since then i have simplified and ditched those. In particular by ditching the vest i could really start to focus on achieving the draw par times in Steve's and Ben's books. I will throw on a vest for 1-2 practices before a match, just to add the step of flinging the vest back. but otherwise my focus is on optimizing the no-vest draw.

[MWP]

jroback, wouldn't that make for 2 different draw strokes?

[elguapo]

jroback, wouldn't that make for 2 different draw strokes?

No. It's the same draw stoke. Sometimes it is preceded by a separate motion to clear the garment, sometimes it is not.

He has the correct approach to progressive training.

Edited October 19, 2014 by elguapo

[45 Raven]

I was doing all my dry fire practice without the vest and then performing sub-par draws in matches until I started putting on the vest for dry fire practice. Things have improved. Personal results may vary. It's the approach that worked for me.

[daves_not_here]

I would say do both and compare the par times.

This will give you feedback on the best technique to sweep the vest out of the way. Regardless of whether you play anything other than IDPA finding how much time the vest adds is valuable. If the vest is adding a lot to your par time (over 0.5 seconds) then you might investigate what you're doing. Video helps.

I do Anderson drills with and without concealment writing in two different part times. Recording par times in the Anderson book I think is really important.

My goal was to get the draw with concealment really close to the time without concealment. Right now if the vest adds around 0.2 to my par time I'm happy.

Drawing from surrender and seated is a totally different ballgame with concealment. It can add seconds to your stage time if you don't have it down.

The same applies to reloads. Dickering with your vest to find your mag is something to train away from during dry-fire not on the clock. The Burkett reload drill (Anderson drill #7 vol. 1) helps. Your arms are up holding the vest away from your body so when you go for your mag get your hand in the gap. If you lean sideways during reload the gap between the vest and body closes and can mess with getting to your mag.

Remember you are trying to get the to the gun or the mag, not trying to throw the vest out of the way with flourish. Check out Bob Vogel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pmCnvosHBI

Notice how he starts with his pinky touching the edge of his vest. He doesn't have to search to clear it. His hand goes right to the gun and there is no extra movement of the hand to get it out of the way.

His vest on the mag change barely moves indicating that he didn't have to clear the vest to get to his mag. I'd also like to point out you can see his head dip down and look at his magwell.

Be like Bob, except for the stuff that he has in his right pocket which will get you in trouble at a match.

DNH

Edited October 20, 2014 by daves_not_here

[Steve RA]

It doesn't count if you aren't properly uniformed !!!

[jroback]

As Elguapo stated it, I use a progressive training approach. This is something that just feels right to me, but it may be different for other people. I find that the more I practice, the more I gravitate to this kind of training. In some of Ben's books, he lists "micro drills" which are another form of progressive training. For example, for reloads he has 2 micro drills: Burkett 1 (gun on target to new mag at mag well) and Burkett 2 (mag at mag well to gun back on target). I was having problems with dropping mag, so I added Burkett 0.5 (gun on target to mag released). Once I fixed that problem, then I added the other skills back in until the whole technique was working. I know this is off-topic, but its the same approach I've used for drawing from concealment.

[GmanCdp]

I wear a vest dry firing for IDPA 90% of the time, but also do a lot of reload practice as part of the dry fire retaining mags. Oh, I also shoot USPSA sometimes with a vest..