The draw

[jimbullet]

When reprogramming yourself on a draw technique, what is the best and fastest way to do this. Would there be any benefit if you practice it slowly at first and the pick up the pace?

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[jroback]

I am by no means an expert on this topic, but that is what I have done. I practice the aspect of the draw I want to change very slowly, really consciously concentrating on the new technique. Then I try to go faster, still with conscious attention. Hard to know how long it will take. With really big changes I subscribe to the 60x21 rule: practice it 60 times a day for 21 days -- seems to work for me. Eventually, you can "hand it over" to your subconscious -- a lot of good material on this topic in Lanny Bassham's book and elsewhere on this forum. Hope that helps.

Edited November 1, 2014 by jroback

[lstone]

I always had a issue with my draw. the swinging it out chicken wing method not pretty. I had a training class that told me the fastest part of the draw is not the right hand. the left hand will help you draw faster. If you get your left hand up to the center of your chest the right hand trys to work just as fast getting close to the chest to where the hands will meet and then drive the gun to the natural point of aim. We worked slow to begin with and within 20 minutes of slow to faster speeds I dropped 1/2 a second off the draw and was faster on target. I still continually work that with dry fire practice

[boudreux]

As stated in post #2, practicing it over and over again is the best way to do it. How long it takes really depends on the person I think. When I dry fire I usually draw anywhere between 50 and 100 times. It doesn't take long at all to get that many draws in either, i may spend 20-30 mins 3 times a wekk. I think you should start off slow to get the new motion down and slowly get faster over days/weeks. If you try and go as fast as you can right off the bat, you will probably end up going back to your old way.

[turkeypoker]

Thanks for the advice

[magpulled]

I always had a issue with my draw. the swinging it out chicken wing method not pretty. I had a training class that told me the fastest part of the draw is not the right hand. the left hand will help you draw faster. If you get your left hand up to the center of your chest the right hand trys to work just as fast getting close to the chest to where the hands will meet and then drive the gun to the natural point of aim. We worked slow to begin with and within 20 minutes of slow to faster speeds I dropped 1/2 a second off the draw and was faster on target. I still continually work that with dry fire practice

I've seen some really good shooters sorta slap their chest with the weak hand and I've tried it in dry fire and it seems to help me line the sights up faster. I'm gonna incorporate this into my dry fire and see if it I can do it

[Ultimo-Hombre]

In my opinion speed of draw is sometimes over emphasized for some newer shooters. Shaving .5 off your draw may help you on some classifiers it.... But is not gonna be the deciding factor on a 32 round COF. By all means a sub 1 sec draw is badass and chicks dig it. As long as the speed isn't at the expense of the perfect grip and support hand placement. All that said, great advice here. I like the 60x21 rule above.

[itlogo]

One thing I remember from taking a Manny Bragg class was that he had us work on each part of the draw individually, so we'd set a par time just going from hands relaxed to onto the grip. Once we did that a few times, then start from hand on grip and drawing out of the holster. A few times with that and then pushing out. All of this was done individually and with par time. When we finished going through all of the individual parts, then we did the entire draw, again, with par time.

Whatever sort of draw you're looking at practicing, break it down into individual parts and work on them separately.

[AWLAZS]

Break it down into chunks. Once you have each part worked out start doing the entire draw. Just do it no par time required.

[Blinck27]

I definitely feel that a starting pace ingrains the muscle memory.

[zjmccauley]

Always best to get the technique down slowly and then picking the pace up

[38supPat]

Follow along with this.

[Jshuberg]

A couple of suggestions:

When working on a new draw technique, or fixing a glitch in your draw, start out working on it slowly. Focus on smoothness and efficiency of motion. Work on doing it exactly the same way each time, slowly.

Once you've done that awhile, watch yourself differently while performing those same slow motions, watch how your hand acquires the weapon, look at how your hands come together, look at the movement of the gun through space. Do the exact same motions slowly, but break it down and watch each part and observe it separately. At the same time, pay attention to how each part of the draw feels. Where are your hands and elbows are in relation to the rest of your body. What does the gun feel like when you first touch it just before getting a proper grip. How does it feel when you touch it just before you get your grip wrong. Also visually track your front sight while keeping the target fixed in your center of vision, as the gun enters your peripheral vision below and comes up to the target, don't look directly at the sight, but pay attention to how it looks as it makes it's way up to the target. By doing these things repeatedly, you're programming yourself a feedback loop. By visually and physically observing the proper draw, you are building the procedural memory (aka muscle memory) to perform the draw, and also to recognize by both sight and feel when something goes wrong.

Once you've done that for awhile, the next step is to visualize the arc the front sight takes from the holster to full presentation. Imagine this path as an orange ribbon in space, and that when you perform the draw, you see the front sight follow this path perfectly from holster to presentation. If you make a mistake, you should physically feel something wrong, and you should see the front sight where it doesn't follow the ribbon properly. Really work at seeing the arc the front sight will follow as a ribbon in the air. By visualizing the ribbon, you're giving your subconscious mind a mechanism by which you can lead the motion of your gun with your mind, rather than simply following and observing it. The result is that you're mind will actually be one step ahead of the draw, rather than one step behind it. Between this and your feedback loop, you are developing the procedural memory to properly draw your weapon much faster than brute force repetition would provide for you.

Once you've done that for awhile, pick a point of aim on the wall, close your eyes, and draw your weapon the same way. It should feel the way you observed it earlier. Visualize the ribbon you want the front sight to track through to full presentation. Visualize the location of the front sight relative to where your hands are. Bring the gun up through the path, feel how your hands come together to full presentation, pause for a brief moment, and open your eyes. If you practice this enough you will discover that when you open your eyes your sights will be properly aligned directly over your target. This is validation that your technique and training is working.

Once you've done that for awhile, keep your eyes open again and add a little bit more speed. If you start introducing error or otherwise recognize you're moving too fast, slow it down a little bit. Once you've done that for awhile at your slightly faster speed, you're done - go have a beer.

Next time you do this, try to start at the speed you stopped at last time. You can use a shot timer to help with this. Once again, visually and physically observe your draw at your starting speed. Visualize the ribbon the front sight takes through space. Then do it with your eyes closed and verify that your programming is working, then open your eyes, and speed it up another notch. Rinse and repeat.

Once you can get the draw down to somewhere around 1.0-1.5 seconds on target with your eyes closed, you no longer need to consciously observe yourself anymore. At that point your programming is in place and you need to fully hand control of your actions over to the subconscious. Don't think about your motions anymore, at the instant you decide to draw your weapon, simply see the ribbon flash into place, and let your subconscious deal with the details of getting the gun out and moving. As far as the conscious mind is concerned, the draw is simply a matter of imagining the ribbon the front sight will travel through. No motion, no front sight, just the path from the holster to full presentation as a ribbon in space.

It's also possible to further speed up your draw by forcing your mind away from your weapon hand by intentionally focusing your mind on your support hand. It's an active form of meditation. When the mind is mentally paying attention to your support hand, it's *not* paying attention to your weapon hand, allowing your subconscious to take over. Don't track the full movement of the support hand, but pay attention to getting your support hand in the proper position and orientation to join your weapon hand just before the weapon hand gets there. It's not the motion of the support hand, it's the position of the support hand in space in order to properly mate up.

The conscious mind is slow, and it lags what we are doing in time by a fraction of a second. By intentionally paying attention to your support hand, while simultaneously visualizing the ribbon the front sight will travel through, you are completely surrendering the movement of the gun during the draw to the subconscious, which gets it there much faster and accurately by using your procedural memory than you would be able to accomplish with the conscious mind.

Hope this helps.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Jshuberg

[leemoe83]

When changing a technique at the beginning of the practice session do enough slow reps to get it ingrained at least for the session and then just go fast. Eventually it will just be how you do it all the time.

I never really got much benefit from going slow except learning how to go slow. When figuring out what to change i will do slow reps just looking at what i am doing but this is not what i would call practice.

I really only practice at two paces, comfortable match pace, and fast as ppssible.

[rowdyb]

practicing daily. every day!

practicing perfect. do reps an a pace and in a place where you are doing it perfectly. (a good performance at speed can NOT be forced)

work backwards. start from your shooting position and work/deconstruct your new draw in its components back to the holster. i find this helps reprogram my brain.

repetition, consistency and attention to the new aspects.

personally, i find it takes me at least 500 reps of a gun skill to learn something new. then double that amount again for it be smooth and subconscious.

[scottlep]

A couple of suggestions:

When working on a new draw technique, or fixing a glitch in your draw, start out working on it slowly. Focus on smoothness and efficiency of motion. Work on doing it exactly the same way each time, slowly.

Once you've done that awhile, watch yourself differently while performing those same slow motions, watch how your hand acquires the weapon, look at how your hands come together, look at the movement of the gun through space. Do the exact same motions slowly, but break it down and watch each part and observe it separately. At the same time, pay attention to how each part of the draw feels. Where are your hands and elbows are in relation to the rest of your body. What does the gun feel like when you first touch it just before getting a proper grip. How does it feel when you touch it just before you get your grip wrong. Also visually track your front sight while keeping the target fixed in your center of vision, as the gun enters your peripheral vision below and comes up to the target, don't look directly at the sight, but pay attention to how it looks as it makes it's way up to the target. By doing these things repeatedly, you're programming yourself a feedback loop. By visually and physically observing the proper draw, you are building the procedural memory (aka muscle memory) to perform the draw, and also to recognize by both sight and feel when something goes wrong.

Once you've done that for awhile, the next step is to visualize the arc the front sight takes from the holster to full presentation. Imagine this path as an orange ribbon in space, and that when you perform the draw, you see the front sight follow this path perfectly from holster to presentation. If you make a mistake, you should physically feel something wrong, and you should see the front sight where it doesn't follow the ribbon properly. Really work at seeing the arc the front sight will follow as a ribbon in the air. By visualizing the ribbon, you're giving your subconscious mind a mechanism by which you can lead the motion of your gun with your mind, rather than simply following and observing it. The result is that you're mind will actually be one step ahead of the draw, rather than one step behind it. Between this and your feedback loop, you are developing the procedural memory to properly draw your weapon much faster than brute force repetition would provide for you.

Once you've done that for awhile, pick a point of aim on the wall, close your eyes, and draw your weapon the same way. It should feel the way you observed it earlier. Visualize the ribbon you want the front sight to track through to full presentation. Visualize the location of the front sight relative to where your hands are. Bring the gun up through the path, feel how your hands come together to full presentation, pause for a brief moment, and open your eyes. If you practice this enough you will discover that when you open your eyes your sights will be properly aligned directly over your target. This is validation that your technique and training is working.

Once you've done that for awhile, keep your eyes open again and add a little bit more speed. If you start introducing error or otherwise recognize you're moving too fast, slow it down a little bit. Once you've done that for awhile at your slightly faster speed, you're done - go have a beer.

Next time you do this, try to start at the speed you stopped at last time. You can use a shot timer to help with this. Once again, visually and physically observe your draw at your starting speed. Visualize the ribbon the front sight takes through space. Then do it with your eyes closed and verify that your programming is working, then open your eyes, and speed it up another notch. Rinse and repeat.

Once you can get the draw down to somewhere around 1.0-1.5 seconds on target with your eyes closed, you no longer need to consciously observe yourself anymore. At that point your programming is in place and you need to fully hand control of your actions over to the subconscious. Don't think about your motions anymore, at the instant you decide to draw your weapon, simply see the ribbon flash into place, and let your subconscious deal with the details of getting the gun out and moving. As far as the conscious mind is concerned, the draw is simply a matter of imagining the ribbon the front sight will travel through. No motion, no front sight, just the path from the holster to full presentation as a ribbon in space.

It's also possible to further speed up your draw by forcing your mind away from your weapon hand by intentionally focusing your mind on your support hand. It's an active form of meditation. When the mind is mentally paying attention to your support hand, it's *not* paying attention to your weapon hand, allowing your subconscious to take over. Don't track the full movement of the support hand, but pay attention to getting your support hand in the proper position and orientation to join your weapon hand just before the weapon hand gets there. It's not the motion of the support hand, it's the position of the support hand in space in order to properly mate up.

The conscious mind is slow, and it lags what we are doing in time by a fraction of a second. By intentionally paying attention to your support hand, while simultaneously visualizing the ribbon the front sight will travel through, you are completely surrendering the movement of the gun during the draw to the subconscious, which gets it there much faster and accurately by using your procedural memory than you would be able to accomplish with the conscious mind.

Hope this helps.

Excellent explanation! This is pretty much how I practice my draw, but I in no way could have explained it as well as you have here.

[newmexicocrawler]

Start slow...recording yourself and or watching yourself in mirror to build muscle memory

As with shooting....speed comes with practice