Shooting too fast

[GunBugBit]

"Half speed" is more of a guideline than an absolute.

As a current musician (44 years), I can authoritatively state that some highly technical passages on some instruments must be approached at half speed, or slower, or the performer will never end up mastering them. It's just a fact. If you've ever tried Arthur Pryor's arrangement of Blue Bells of Scotland at the marked tempi, on a slide trombone, you will know what I mean. You can even cheat and use a valved brass instrument and you are highly unlikely to execute those passages your first time at anything over 1/3 speed. Or, for you trumpet players: Carnival of Venice. For every other instrumentalist: Flight of the Bumble Bee. Enough said.

Not sure if there's a parallel to this in shooting, but I know this: Max Michel is 3 times faster than me (going by Steel Challenge times) so by definition I can't even practice at 50% of his speed. What if the "music" was marked to play at Max Michel's average speed?

[motosapiens]

What if the "music" was marked to play at Max Michel's average speed?

Lol, that's a fair point.

[toothguy]

"Half speed" is more of a guideline than an absolute.

As a current musician (44 years), I can authoritatively state that some highly technical passages on some instruments must be approached at half speed, or slower, or the performer will never end up mastering them. It's just a fact. If you've ever tried Arthur Pryor's arrangement of Blue Bells of Scotland at the marked tempi, on a slide trombone, you will know what I mean. You can even cheat and use a valved brass instrument and you are highly unlikely to execute those passages your first time at anything over 1/3 speed. Or, for you trumpet players: Carnival of Venice. For every other instrumentalist: Flight of the Bumble Bee. Enough said.

Not sure if there's a parallel to this in shooting, but I know this: Max Michel is 3 times faster than me (going by Steel Challenge times) so by definition I can't even practice at 50% of his speed. What if the "music" was marked to play at Max Michel's average speed?

[Chris iliff]

Everything like your hair is on fire. EVERYTHING.

PUSH PUSH PUSH your times,....doing EVERYTHING.

SEEING IS OUR #1 PRIORITY.

Everything you do gun related should be based on SEEING,.....UNTIL YOU SEE ENOUGH TO CALL THE SHOT EVERYTIME.

Nothing comes to you. NOTHING. You will not get magically faster over time or magically SEE stuff.

How do I get faster? Well duh, GO FASTER!

My hits will suffer! Well duh, figure out what you are not seeing/seeing and fix it.

DRILLS FOR SEEING

Berm shooting

Bill drills

Blake drills

Any classifier you can set up and run the piss out of, over and over. El Presidente is really good,.. It has it all basically.

Near to far, far to near.

These are your friends. Learn all the lessons you can from these. You could not do these drills enough.

In the end, this is a SHOOTING sport. SHOOTING should always be your focus.

Shooting to fast...............that's a speed focus and that is a loser statement. Whether you say too fast or too slow....loser statement.

Train to shoot your VISION. PUSH your SEEING. push push push.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Chris iliff

[toothguy]

[GunBugBit]

What if the "music" was marked to play at Max Michel's average speed?

Lol, that's a fair point.

Thank you, good discussion we've had here.

Right now my approach to getting faster in match shooting is to sometimes push speed a little, focusing a lot on precision and crispness. I've learned the hard way that fast blasting leads to sloppiness and bad scores.

I do push speed hard during drills, maybe 20% of the time. Matches, even practice matches, aren't the time I want to try going faster than I have before. Last practice match, I had the good fortune of seeing with unusually good clarity. Seeing well makes everything go better.

[Firefight5243]

I ran my own test on this , this past weekend. On the last stage I decided that I was going to get on the *thumb rest [generic]* and go for broke. Wellllll it didn't work as planned. I ended up dumping follow up shots and fumbled a reload but I was out past my comfort zone. My hits suffered a little bit. But mostly knocked my rythem out of wack and ended up screwing up on things I never do.

Now on the other hand. It was fun. But not productive.

[FTDMFR]

My advice: NEVER try to rush at the match. Just watch your sights and call your shots.

If you want to get faster, work on it in practice, not on match day.

Also, I've come to the conclusion that going slower is rarely the right answer. Usually you'll get better results by paying more attention, which will often end up being faster than what you were doing before (although it might FEEL slower).

Edited October 13, 2015 by FTDMFR

[barebones1]

I used my match breakdowns to understand where I needed the most work. dry fire , dry fire. at the range dry fire mixing in live. I used a plate rack at 20yrd. dry fire 3 4 times. load 1 round pull, acquire fire. Slow, being aware of every aspect. where was my finger on the trigger?, what did my sight picture look like? where did my round impact? slow slow. break down your dry fire, I set timer for random. buzzer, place hand on pistol. really break it down, repeat till your hand lands in that "sweet" spot every time. move to the next movement, draw and grip. i probably just put my hand on my gun several thousand times. I am 55 and 60 lbs over weight. I will shoot my 8th match Sunday. I came in the bottom ten when I started, I finished in the top ten last match. Breaking the movements down with dry and live fire has converted everything from thought to reflex. pistol cleared the holster correctly , my stance and my grip are correct. I feel relaxed and almost in slow motion, I`m smiling inside as I break the shot. For me, all this has enabled me to focus on the making the shot. For me "slow and smooth = speed and accuracy" one other dry fire that helped me. put a small piece of tape on the wall and practice pulling the trigger with out the gun moving at all. I watch TV and dry fire at the spot of blue tape. I am a newbee and am in no position to be giving advise ! just sharing what has helped me thus far. cheers

[rpm8300]

One way to frame the problem is desired hits on target - if you look at the top national shooters in USPSA production, in the entire national competition, they'll maintain a 3 to 1 or even 4 to 1, A to non-A hit ratio. Everyone has a different strategy to get the highest hit factor for a stage, but for me, if I keep that goal in the back of my mind it keeps my speed and cadence from speeding up to the point of diminishing returns.

[GunBugBit]

... slow slow. break down your dry fire...

Yes, I do this and I also break down my live fire. I had an extended live fire practice session yesterday, backing off from and crossing back over that speed line where some shots land where I don't expect them to.

I re-concluded something I landed on a few months ago, which is that fighting against recoil, something I can lapse into unconsciously, is not as effective as rolling my thumb-butts together and gripping firmly, neutrally, with both support and strong hand, while keeping my trigger finger relaxed and not fighting against recoil. Then, the front sight doesn't rise as much when a shot breaks and the gun naturally returns very nearly to where it was before the shot broke. It almost surprises me when I get this to happen, and I want to find it more and more during matches.

Arms almost fully extended without locked elbows also helps me.

Edited November 16, 2015 by GunBugBit

[GunBugBit]

On ‎8‎/‎4‎/‎2015 at 7:36 AM, GunBugBit said:

...One guy I'm thinking of does pretty well at the club matches but is still unclassified despite having been to a USPSA all-classifier and having shot at least one other USPSA match. He sometimes presses the trigger faster than his skills allow and his scores are getting destroyed by Mikes and hitting no-shoots. He can move fast, reload fast, etc. Those things aren't helping him get on the map. When he sorts out the accuracy thing, he'll be on his way.

This fellow I was speaking of is now a USPSA Master in Open division.  He went from Unclassified shooting a 9mm Range Officer 1911 to Master shooting a race gun (not sure who built it) in quite a short time.  How?  Lots of dry fire, shooting as many matches as he could, getting instruction from at least one GM, and having a lot of youthful fire to pour into the sport.  Whenever I observed him, he was always going fast.  He took concrete steps to bring his shooting skill up to where he could go fast and get his hits, rather than slow down and hope the foundation of accuracy would magically transform into better scores.

 

Hi name is Theo and you might know him.

[Hi-Power Jack]

We have our own "Theo" at my local club ....   Every club seems to have at least one.

 

And, some of them do make M - but most don't    

 

But, I see what you're saying - I also have to learn to hit while I'm going fast - maybe one day    

[MemphisMechanic]

The problem with steel is that it’s all a big giant A-zone in your mind. You’d never accept a sight picture up in the corner of a paper target - that costs points. You need to shoot the center of a paper target, so you aim for the middle of this bigger object.  And guess what? Your small misses still hit the target in the C zone.

 

... see where I’m going with this?

 

See a front sight in clear focus for each shot, and don’t accept a sight picture that doesn’t have white steel all the way around the front post inside the notch. Shoot the middle of every target.

 

It makes a huge difference.

 

Edited January 10, 2018 by MemphisMechanic

[Youngeyes]

2 hours ago, MemphisMechanic said:

The problem with steel is that it’s all a big giant A-zone in your mind. You’d never accept a sight picture up in the corner of a paper target - that costs points. You need to shoot the center of a paper target, so you aim for the middle of this bigger object.  And guess what? Your small misses still hit the target in the C zone.

 

... see where I’m going with this?

 

See a front sight in clear focus for each shot, and don’t accept a sight picture that doesn’t have white steel all the way around the front post inside the notch. Shoot the middle of every target.

 

It makes a huge difference.

 

My favorite Brian quote.. "See the target, point the gun at the target (often, align the sights on the target), and hold the gun there until the bullet has left the barrel "

 

[MemphisMechanic]

44 minutes ago, Youngeyes said:

My favorite Brian quote.. "See the target, point the gun at the target (often, align the sights on the target), and hold the gun there until the bullet has left the barrel "

 

 

Rob Leatham: “I find the middle of the target, I shoot it twice, then I get to the next one as quickly as possible”

[Eureka1911]

28 minutes ago, MemphisMechanic said:

 

Rob Leatham: “I find the middle of the target, I shoot it twice, then I get to the next one as quickly as possible”

 

 

And it's just that easy, right

[MemphisMechanic]

It’s simple.

 

But that doesn’t make it easy. Much like golf: just take these clubs and knock the ball into that hole over there.

[GunBugBit]

Yes, it's simple.  Just learn to get your hits going at top speed (roughly as fast as you can press the trigger).  I've shot enough now to know it doesn't just come to us.  "Push push push" as Chris said above.  It has to be pursued, and very hard, because it does not just come.  Not just hard physical effort, but using the mind to be creative, thinking of new approaches to process things and execute within compressed time.  The brain is fast, the eyes are fast, the rest can be close behind.

 

My approach got me, what?   C class in USPSA, B class in Steel Challenge, the ability to get all the As available in a match.  So what.  I have to be faster.

[Shootymacshootface]

On 1/10/2018 at 3:49 PM, MemphisMechanic said:

 

Rob Leatham: “I find the middle of the target, I shoot it twice, then I get to the next one as quickly as possible”

Robs short answer is "shoot fast, don't miss", hilarious! 

[ShootNScootKevin]

IRT Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast.

http://andersonshooting.libsyn.com/slow-is-not-smooth-and-neither-one-is-fast#KiBUu4WwTeQjlKMV.01

[fordwes06]

Can I acquire speed on shooting through motor learning or muscle memory? 

[k80clay]

On ‎8‎/‎1‎/‎2015 at 9:36 PM, StraightSh00ter said:

Long story as usual so here's the question: how do you go fast without rushing, or what do you do to stay calm and keep yourself from tensing up?

I shot at my first steel match last night. I didn't think I'd be competitive. so when it was my turn I just went up to the line and shot how I knew I could. My first stage was basically perfect - 3 clean rounds under 3 seconds. I was surprised and could hardly believe it. But it got to my head and I rushed through the next stages, thinking I could 'finish strong' and started missing. It was a total waste of the first stage and everything I had learned and been practicing.

I was figuring out I needed to slow down, and someone told me "slow down to speed up". I did that, and obviously started getting more hits with less shots. But I couldn't get back to that place I was in before shooting the first round. It was hard to let myself slow down or be relaxed once I heard that buzzer.

I noticed this last Sunday too - after I shot a stage or two I got 'comfortable' and tried to be faster. My draw got messy and I both missed engaging in targets and shot from the wrong position.

So how does one deal with this kind of thing?

 

There's a point where it's better to take the extra half second to get a sight picture. Most people start out just not wanting to mess up (let's be honest, it's embarrassing to mess up with a gun in front of everybody) so they go slow. They get a little more comfortable and try to speed up, end up missing and the effort to speed up ends up costing more time. That's the "slow down to go faster" comes from. If it takes a half second to swing over to another target, pull the trigger when the front of the gun is "in the area", expect the sound of a hit (as you're moving over to the next target - remember - you're "going fast") only to have it register that there was no hit. Now you have to stop and move back over, take more time, etc. Could have all been avoided if you would have taken that extra half second to see the sights to get a good hit. Half second - miss (plus the time to move back, shoot again, etc) or half second plus a half second to see the sights (slowing down) means you go faster.  

[RangerTrace]

Yeah, I had a couple stages today at an all steel match where I was able to see the sights and make the shots like you're supposed to.   It was so enlightening, that i almost stopped shooting.....

[Eureka1911]

That is such a cool feeling!! I'm getting better at calling shots and knowing where they are going as the trigger gets pulled. Even when practicing I can generally tell when I'm going to have a flyer.