Highwayman Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 (edited) For the last month, I've been trying to dry fire for an hour a day and posting my entries on the Range Diary forum. Key word, trying. Doing a few Steve Anderson drills is tough working retail and balancing volunteer meetings, the full hour is too daunting some days and I only pull it off a few times a week. What are the 'key' drills I should do every day as if I were brushing my teeth, even if it just takes ten minutes? Drawing? Reloads? Any target transitions or movement? This will not replace my full sessions, I would just like to establish a bare minimum each day. Edited October 23, 2014 by Highwayman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wamcei Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 I use Steve Anderson's book. I would do at least the first 7 drills in that book. Mainly draws, reloads, and sight pictures. Do the basics IMHO but then again I am fairly new to the sport Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkCO Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 Holy crap, Kudos. You have more dry-fire in a month that I have done in any year! I am really trying to be consistent with dry-fire for the rest of the year in the hopes that I can establish the habit and not wince about making a New Years resolution to Dry-Fire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeRush Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 For the last month, I've been trying to dry fire for an hour a day and posting my entries on the Range Diary forum. Key word, trying. Doing a few Steve Anderson drills is tough working retail and balancing volunteer meetings, the full hour is too daunting some days and I only pull it off a few times a week. What are the 'key' drills I should do every day as if I were brushing my teeth, even if it just takes ten minutes? Drawing? Reloads? Any target transitions or movement? This will not replace my full sessions, I would just like to establish a bare minimum each day. I found a point where the low hanging fruit related to draw and reload was consumed. I can get better but its not the most efficient use of my time at this point. Im doing more draws while moving, transitions, and just plain movement, ie entries and exits. Another thing is visualizing the sight picture and "scoring" the targets in dryfire. Steve's podcasts have talked a lot about this lately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racinready300ex Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 I don't think it's a simile as do these drills. You need to work on what YOU need to work on. Work through the book you have, spend more time on the drills you suck at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 Shooters need to dry fire what they are getting killed by during matches. The vast majority of the time, shooters are not getting "Killed" by a slow draw or reloads. Most shooters get killed by inefficient or turtle slow movement through the stages. Who cares if you draw is half a second slow when you are giving up several seconds of stage time in poor movement skills. Practice smarter not harder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 Amen. Unless you have a 5 sec draw followed by a 5 sec reload stop spending so much time of that stuff and work skills you really need ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 (edited) The sad fact of the matter is that if you have a 1.5 second draw and reload, that IS fast enough for the vast majority of the field courses we are tasked with shooting in USPSA matches. If you can currently produce a 1.5 second or faster draw and reload, but are still getting your ass handed to you by several seconds on field course stages, those two skills are NOT what is causing your lost stage time. Its everything else. Knowing that, if you dry fire practiced any other skill EXCEPT draws or reloads you would probably end up with a far more effective use of your practice time. If you don't know what skills you are failing at that are costing you time, that is the number one issue to fix. You can't "Fix" a skill unless you know that you have issues with that skill. Performing random dry fire drills out of a book or off of a video is a waste of time if you can't directly correlate the purpose of the drill and how performing it will FIX an existing issue you know you have. Once again, practice smarter, not harder. Edited October 23, 2014 by CHA-LEE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wamcei Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 In every other sport I participated in the bare necessities was covered every day. Hence why I suggested the beginning drills in the front of Steves book. But, if you think of it almost all the drills involve draw, reload and such so you are correct by working on the things that are giving you "fits" at matches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smitty79 Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 How do you know what's giving you fits? I usually beat the stage winner for points and come in at 70% more time for a percent around 60 to 65%. I am a fat senior, so some of that is just I don't move fast even with empty hands in a track suit. The place where I truly fail, is classifiers. I usually finish classifiers at about 40% of the stage winner. I think I should focus on draw, reloads and target to target transitions. Lots of El Prez but not always turning around. Am I right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcg Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 I'd also suggest Ben Stoeger's book Dry Firing. It's got 40+ drills that pretty much cover basics & intermediate stuff, along w/ good explanations and "goal" times for each. I usually DF about 15-20 min/day, varying the drills. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 The majority of the time shooters don't even realize what they are doing wrong when dry firing on their own. It takes a different mindset to objectively observe what you are doing so you can isolate the issues, try alternate methods and deploy solutions. This self evaluation and solution deployment skill is not in many shooters skills tool box to leverage. Most shooters require in person training or coaching to point out the issues and recommend solutions to properly learn how to do something correctly. If you think that doing mass quantities of crappy dry fire mechanics is going to magically fix your issues you are sadly mistaken. I don't want to poo on anyone's parade but that is just how it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nickb45 Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 I have been doing the Ben Stoeger 15 minute dry fire drills. Seemed to help a lot at the last match I shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wamcei Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 Cha-Lee I agree so I video tape all of my practices and then compare my videos to the top shooters videos. Do I do it correctly all the time H*ll no but I am learning faster than ever before Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoyGlock Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 (edited) Whatever skill I dry fire, the most important is how and where I focus my attention. Edited October 24, 2014 by BoyGlock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewtac Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 I to am limited on time and use Steve's drills. I usually get home after dark, so already limited to the drills I can do inside. I generally skip around a do a few from each section, like 1,4,5,9,12 then change it the next day. I also decrease the number of reps on some of the early drills (3's instead of 5's). As mentioned above, work on what you need to improve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3djedi Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 Which Steve Anderson book are you guys working out of? There's three, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motosapiens Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 How do you know what's giving you fits? I usually beat the stage winner for points and come in at 70% more time for a percent around 60 to 65%. I am a fat senior, so some of that is just I don't move fast even with empty hands in a track suit. The place where I truly fail, is classifiers. I usually finish classifiers at about 40% of the stage winner. I think I should focus on draw, reloads and target to target transitions. Lots of El Prez but not always turning around. Am I right? Talk to some of other shooters you shoot with, particularly those that are 1 or 2 classes better than you. Don't use being old and fat as an excuse either. Lots of old fat slow guys shoot very well and quickly. If you are doing worse at classifiers than on field courses, I would try to figure out why. Are you shooting super conservative on classifiers? Set one up in practice and experiment with pushing the pace a little. If I only had 10 mins a day to dryfire, I would skip shaving so i could do 20 minutes. I would spend a couple minutes on draws (particularly building the grip). Some days it would be all moving draws, 1-2 steps to a position. The other 15-18 mins I would rotate, different types of drills depending on what was giving me trouble at matches. I can pretty much always justify drills where I'm working on transition speed and good sight picture, and I can also always justify shooting while moving (cuz it really helps with sight awareness). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rowdyb Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 Say your local match each week is 6 stages at 30 seconds a piece. That's a 180 second match, or three minutes. If you do three minutes of dry firing a day you've shot a match. For me, I find 5 minutes of focused practice to be good. I try more often than not to shoot multiple target, multiple movement 'stages' when dry firing rather than just straight up drills. Almost every time I work -draw -reload moving to new position -target transitions -stages or multiple arrays As other said, honestly get an assessment of your biggest weakness or two and work those more than anything else till they are gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Not-So-Mad Matt Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 If you're already working out of Steve Anderson's first book -- that is its official title, right? -- then I'd suggest just doing 6 Reload 6, if you're pressed for time. If movement is a weakness, then I'd make up a few moving variations -- drawing while moving into position, shooting while crossing the room, then while crossing back, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wamcei Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 I have recently changed up what I am doing. I found myself 5 extra minutes and do Ben Stoeger's 15 minute dry fire drills I found on here. Someone put it into a pdf format and it works great! Now if I have more time and want to mix it up I go to Steve Andersons Refinement and Repitition and do the whole book. When I do this I break it out into 3 sessions a day. I have seen my times drop and am picking up the sights much easier. I am now concentrating on movements (I.e. : enter and exits, setting up stages in my home, and using airsoft in the backyard on stages) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 (edited) Your dry fire routine should be based on what your goals are as well. Are you trying to move up in class? Then you need to focus on your stand and shoot skills. For match improvement Chalee is exactly right (as always). You need to improve on moving better through a stage, not necessarily faster. Entering and exiting positions, shooting through positions, transitions, etc. Forget draws and reloads if you only have 15 mins a day .... As far as time goes, everyone has a spare 1/2 hr in a day where they otherwise are just wasting time. Find out where that is and dry fire instead. Edited November 11, 2014 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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