Can you clear the dots?

[QuickMick]

if you could consistently put 6 in the dot in 5 seconds, you would be a GM, which is like president/emperor in idpa I think.

did that at 8m with four out of six in about 6s, best exercise ever. Just struggling a little bit with the first shot (DA) and the draw. Anyway, progressing is not a linear function.....

[Nimitz]

Yeah, the dot drill is pass/fail ... You either do 36/36 within 5 secs for each dot or it doesn't count ... Doesn't mean you don't learn a heck of a lot each time you run it but anything less than 36/36 doesn't count ... It's like those who say they shoot the Bill Drill in 1.87 secs and "only have 1 C" ....

As Ben Stoeger likes to say ... Being able to do 36/36 on demand all within 5 secs is GM level shooting for sure ...

Edited February 12, 2016 by Nimitz

[motosapiens]

i still count them. or maybe I have just never passed it. whatever. until i can pass it, i'll keep quantifying my 'fails' to track my improvement.

[Nimitz]

Experiencing failures and working through them to fix the associated underlying issues which caused the failures is how we learn. Not sure it works any other way ..... Maybe for the aliens at Area 51 it's different but that's a whole other story .......

[ArrDave]

I have done this on 3 occasions now. I've got it back down to 4 shots per dot at 7 yards. I've noticed a trend today that I have 2 near misses than generally hit with 3 and 4. Should I modify the drill by doing 2 shots on each dot with a generous-ish par time at 7 yards, or move it closer and keep the shot count higher? what would you recommend?

[Jake Di Vita]

I don't understand why you're wanting to change the drill? Why don't you just work at the drill as written until you are successful at it? It won't happen overnight.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[ArrDave]

I don't understand why you're wanting to change the drill? Why don't you just work at the drill as written until you are successful at it? It won't happen overnight.

Because more often than not folks say modify it and then keep moving the goalposts until you have a chance at it as it is written, you are the first to suggest otherwise, actually

Sent from an iDevice. Please forgive any grammatical or spelling errors. If the post doesn't make sense or is not amusing then it is technology's fault and most certainly not operator error.

[Jake Di Vita]

I should have been more specific, it's not that I'm against modifying a drill, I just think you need to be careful in what you modify. I like scaling distance or time before I change the actual substance of the drill. To me, the actual shooting procedure is usually laid out with intent of testing and improving a specific skill so I don't want to alter that if I can avoid it. If I can't clear them at 10 yards or do it in 5 seconds or whatever other figure you want to use, but I can clear them with a different distance/time variable, it makes sense to progress on the edge of what you are capable of instead of beating yourself into the dirt with effectively impossible difficulty. This is basically threshold training in that you are practicing just slightly past what your current ability is so we can encourage growth.

If you want to test/improve a different skill then sure you can modify the procedure as well, but do it in addition...I wouldn't do it to the complete exclusion of the original. If you are using the method outlined above, I would also occasionally do the full drill at prescribed distance/time as well just as a benchmark.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[FTDMFR]

Experiencing failures and working through them to fix the associated underlying issues which caused the failures is how we learn. Not sure it works any other way ..... Maybe for the aliens at Area 51 it's different but that's a whole other story .......

After reading The Talent Code and The Little Book of Talent, I've wholeheartedly embraced this way of thinking.

If I pass a drill 80% or more of the time, then it's too easy. If I pass a drill less than 50% of the time, then it's too hard. Passing between 50%-80% of the time is the sweet spot where actual learning happens.

There's something to be said for repeating something successfully over and over again for reinforcement, but if you're trying to improve, you have to push yourself to the point of failure.

Thinking this way has really helped me to not beat myself up so much during practice.

[motosapiens]

If I pass a drill 80% or more of the time, then it's too easy. If I pass a drill less than 50% of the time, then it's too hard. Passing between 50%-80% of the time is the sweet spot where actual learning happens.

There's something to be said for repeating something successfully over and over again for reinforcement, but if you're trying to improve, you have to push yourself to the point of failure.

Thinking this way has really helped me to not beat myself up so much during practice.

another way to avoid beating yourself up in practice is to define success in some other way besides 'x time with y accuracy is a pass, everything else is a fail'.

i've been making more progress since i started treating drills as either speed mode, or match mode. In speed mode, success is improving the time AND calling the shots. I don't stress about c's or even d's as long as I see them. In match mode I shoot only as fast as I can call acceptable shots (A's or very close C's), so success means leaving no mikes or deltas. In match mode, the time is whatever it is. I look at it, but don't judge or stress about it. It wouldn't make sense to shoot *faster* than I can call shots.

The dot drill is a little different, it's more of a test for me. I can structure that test in different ways, by moving the par time, or the number of shots or the distance, but I can only shoot it as fast as I can see it. I don't really score a pass/fail, more like a 'I saw the sights better than last time, and lowered the time, and I knew about every miss from the sights'

[Nimitz]

So we just did this drill with Ben during the 4 days he was here and here's what he recommends ....

Start the drill at 5 yds & a 5 sec par time and 2 shots per dot. Don't change teh par time, it's an important part of the drill ... Extreme accuracy at speed ...

If you can do that at 12/12, on-command, repeatedly then add a 3rd shot

Once you can execute that perfectly , at will, then add another shot until you get to 6

Once you can go 36/36, repeat the above but start at the recommended 7 yds ....

He usually does a this drill at 5 yds during class ... 7 yds is too much for most ...

This drill is designed to be incredibly hard

36/36 on command is GM level shooting

Get a lot of sheets of paper ....

Should keep most shooters busy for the next year ...

It's well worth the effort to be able to execute this drill ...

[FTDMFR]

If I pass a drill 80% or more of the time, then it's too easy. If I pass a drill less than 50% of the time, then it's too hard. Passing between 50%-80% of the time is the sweet spot where actual learning happens.

There's something to be said for repeating something successfully over and over again for reinforcement, but if you're trying to improve, you have to push yourself to the point of failure.

Thinking this way has really helped me to not beat myself up so much during practice.

another way to avoid beating yourself up in practice is to define success in some other way besides 'x time with y accuracy is a pass, everything else is a fail'.

i've been making more progress since i started treating drills as either speed mode, or match mode. In speed mode, success is improving the time AND calling the shots. I don't stress about c's or even d's as long as I see them. In match mode I shoot only as fast as I can call acceptable shots (A's or very close C's), so success means leaving no mikes or deltas. In match mode, the time is whatever it is. I look at it, but don't judge or stress about it. It wouldn't make sense to shoot *faster* than I can call shots.

The dot drill is a little different, it's more of a test for me. I can structure that test in different ways, by moving the par time, or the number of shots or the distance, but I can only shoot it as fast as I can see it. I don't really score a pass/fail, more like a 'I saw the sights better than last time, and lowered the time, and I knew about every miss from the sights'

Definitely! Training speed mode and match mode separately has helped a ton. And it has helped me get a lot faster, too. Before, the horror of a D or M stopped me from pushing speed as far as I could. Now, as long as it's on brown and I called it, I keep pushing the speed.