Need help on mental anticipation problem while pulling the trigger

[taco2000]

From JJ Razaca's instruction video below, i found out that I have some mental anticipation issue which can't keep my sight alignment very stable before pulling the trigger. is there any dry/live fire exercises that I can do to fix this? any advises will be appreciated.

Edited March 28, 2016 by taco2000

[emjei]

I benefited from using double ear protection.

But.....I cannot reload therefore hot factory loads dont help.

Mj

[b1gcountry]

Yes. Use some dud rounds in your magazines. Either snap caps, or load up some rounds without powder or primers.

Then do some normal drills. Probably no moving at first, but you will get several rounds that don't go bang. Use this to assess whether you are anticipating or flinching.

Do that a little while and you should be able to reduce a lot of it. Otherwise any dry fire should help too.

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[toothguy]

Anticipation

"Yes, everybody. In some form or another practically every bad shot that was not a grip or position issue was a form of anticipation. Jerking the trigger is in essence anticipation, bucking, heeling, flinching, all of them are a form of anticipation.

The problem is I don’t feel anyone has ever really addressed the issue of how to correct it. Like a lot of things when it comes to shooting pistol, coaches could tell ya what you where doing wrong. They could even show you what you were doing wrong. Remember the “Ball and Dummy drill?” Put a dummy round mixed in with the live rounds and show the shooter that they are jerking the trigger or anticipating the recoil. Remember that one? I absolutely hate it and think there is no place on the range for it. The shooter would see the sights go away and the coach would say, “See, I told ya were jerking the trigger.” This usually followed with, “don’t do that!” Well thanks genius!

It doesn’t take you to read this to know that if you are jerking the trigger, heeling, flinching, bucking or closing your eyes and you are aware of it that obviously you don’t want to do that. So how do we stop doing that? That’s where we seem to lose a lot of coaches. They can identify problems but cannot fix the problem. Imagine going to your mechanic and he tells you that the Flux Capacitor on your car is broken because, when you drive at 8:23 PM on a Saturday night in Myrtle Beach for 20 minutes looking for beer because you think they don’t sell beer on Sundays in Myrtle Beach the Flux Capacitor will break, but doesn’t know where it is or even how to fix it if he could find it. Would ya go back to that mechanic?

There is a solution to fix or identify a lot of these problems prior to them becoming shots in places we don’t them to be. Say hello to the Shot Process. Welcome the Shot Process into your life. Get to know the Shot Process. Make it your own little Shot Process and raise it however you see fit, after all, it is YOUR Shot Process to cultivate and modify as you wish. If only children were that easy, well than again what fun would that be?

The Shot Process is your mental plan and checklist that ensures that you are doing everything the same every time in order to shoot tens. Everyone has shot a ten at some point. A ten that you shoot is no different then a ten that I, Jimmy Henderson, Steve Reiter or Phil Hemphill shoots. The difference is we shoot more tens. We have a routine that we follow everytime the gun leaves the bench. A lot of shooters even good shooters that took a long time to get good may not believe this. They may say they never developed Shot Process and they are good. Well guess what they did develop a routine and process over time. They developed a Shot Process or plan without really knowing it. What you need to do is actively develop that plan. Why would you wait and allow it to happen over thousands and thousands of rounds when you can be in control of the development and tweak the plan as you need.

I have heard shooters, good shooters, describe their Shot Process as, “Pick gun up, shoot gun, put gun down.” While it is frustrating to hear a good shooter say that, that is almost my Shot Process now. This is a process now that I have been developing for 20 years. Yes I am still developing my Shot Process. In the beginning my Shot Process was long. I was told to write down everything I did in order to shoot one ten. Everything from the time I put the gun on the bench until the gun went into recoil. Just the part from loading the gun til the gun went bang filled one side of a piece of paper.

Everything that I had to do in order to shoot a ten needed to be confirmed that it was correct. I would dry fire and ensure that everything felt good from feet, hips, shoulders, grip, trigger felt good, confirmed the stage of fire I was about to shoot so I knew whether I was gonna shoot slow fire, timed or rapid. You have got to put to paper everything you need to do to shoot a ten. How many shots you dry fire in slow fire, timed and rapid fire? How many breaths do you take before raising the gun? When do you breathe before raising the gun? Do you inhale the gun up and exhale to settle into the black or vice versa? (note you really should inhale on the way up and exhale to settle into the aiming area) What are you looking at? Irons, the dot, the target if shooting a dot maybe. Do you talk to yourself as the guns comes up? What do you say? Is it a phrase or key word. is it the same thing for all 3 stages of fire? (it really should be or at least really close) What is your visual focus on as the gun is raised? Are you looking at the front sight are you looking at the firing pin. Did you straighten you arm prior to raising the gun or did you just hap-hazzardly throw it up in the direction-of the target? When the gun settled in the aiming area was it acceptable or did you just figure that you could move your arm at the should or adjust the gun in your grip to get the sights where you want them to be? Was the grip proper when you dry fires and did you do something to screw it up when you chambered a round?

Those and so many more questions that need to be addressed in your Shot Process. The best way to learn this process is to have a partner there to write down everything you do and are thinking so that you do not take any short cuts. That is the easy part if you are honest with yourself and actually write down everything you do to shoot one well aimed shot. The hard part is following that process and being able to identify when you are not, or identify problems in the process and abort the shot in slow fire or fix it, expediently, in timed and rapid fire. You have got to be aware of all these steps and be honest with yourself and stop and fix them. If you think in slow fire that you muscle through an indicator and still make a good shot. I am here to tell you that if it does end up on occasion a good shot, you got lucky. I can’t tell ya how many times I thought,”oh I can still shoot this and make it a ten.” Almost every time I didn’t shoot a 100 slow fire, there was that shot. Remember your training partner that helped write down your process? Now use him to ensure that you are in fact following that process that you developed Eventually, down the road, they will become subconscious acts. You will not have to ask yourself all these questions before each slow fire shot and each string of timed and rapid fire, your process will take over and you will automatically be able to identify the imperfections in all the steps and nuances of your process without asking yourself the questions. Maybe you to will reach the, ”pick gun up, shoot gun, put gun down” Shot Process.

With proper trigger control and aiming, by following the Shot Process that you have developed for yourself, you can eliminate a lot of issues to include anticipation.

What makes a real difference is the ability to identify indicators earlier in the process. Most of us at some point have been able to call a shot and say where the shot went before scoping because you saw something happen as the shot broke. What you need to realize is that most of the time there was an indicator earlier in the process that was trying to tell you it was gonna be a bad shot. What we do is not pay attention to them and keep squeezing the trigger thinking that it will fix its self. Most of my shots that I abort are aborted before the gun settles into the aiming area. Yes that early in my process there is an indicator that tells me DO NOT let this shot go without fixing something."

Brian Zins (from his website)

http://www.bullseyepistol.com/zins.htm

Edited March 28, 2016 by toothguy

[SubOrbital]

That's everything you should be aware of when shooting? I don't remember if I breathe or what I'm doing, I just know that when I rush sight picture and start target focusing, I start getting mikes instead of bravos.

[FTDMFR]

Wall drill (dry fire), untimed.

Then, wall drill, with a timer set on random start, and you have to pull the trigger before the end of the beep.

Then, same drill as above, but in live fire, with a target at say 20-25 yards.

Edited March 28, 2016 by FTDMFR

[JJP161]

Thanks for sharing the "shot process" tooth guy, great read.

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[emjei]

I might have a dumb question / statement here.....

How much of a factor the Load play ???? For example : a 147gr bullet requires less powder to make PF ; therefore less BANG compared to a 115gr

I cannot load ; I have to use factory ammunition ( which usually is at 134+ PF ) that makes the anticipation ever harder to control.......I guess Im screw

Mj

[b1gcountry]

Any load is loud and harsh if you aren't used to it. The load makes less of a difference than your comfort level with that load. I assume it isn't physically painful to shoot for you. That is an issue with rifles, but probably not competition handguns.

For example, if I shoot my pocket 9, shooting my g34 by comparison feels like nothing. Both recoil and trigger pull. But starting off with the g34 after not spotting for a while, it sometimes feels zippy-er than I remember it

[emjei]

Any load is loud and harsh if you aren't used to it. The load makes less of a difference than your comfort level with that load. I assume it isn't physically painful to shoot for you. That is an issue with rifles, but probably not competition handguns.

For example, if I shoot my pocket 9, shooting my g34 by comparison feels like nothing. Both recoil and trigger pull. But starting off with the g34 after not spotting for a while, it sometimes feels zippy-er than I remember it

Agree...... I currently have a Stock 2 and 134sPF feels way softer than when I had the Shadow

Mj

[Jake Di Vita]

Yes. Use some dud rounds in your magazines. Either snap caps, or load up some rounds without powder or primers.

Then do some normal drills. Probably no moving at first, but you will get several rounds that don't go bang. Use this to assess whether you are anticipating or flinching.

Do that a little while and you should be able to reduce a lot of it. Otherwise any dry fire should help too.

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I'm really not a fan of this. The problem I have with this drill is that it doesn't differentiate between flinching and compensating for recoil. They are both the similar motions, but the flinch happens before the bullet exits the barrel and compensation happens after. Flinching is obviously bad but compensation is good and the difference between one being the other might only be a couple hundredths of a second.

[b1gcountry]

I know some people say they can compensate for recoil. I just tend to grip it as hard as I can and let the recoil take its course. I also shot steel matches, so .25 splits are actually quite impressive.

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[Jake Di Vita]

You can probably get away with that in matches where you only need one round per target. In USPSA I don't want to let the recoil take it's course.

[CZinZA]

Jake - how do you think one could go about practicing to develop that particular skill?

Sent by Jedi mind control

[Jake Di Vita]

I never had to focus specifically on that, it came naturally through a desire to get the gun back on target at the earliest moment possible. To me, it is a combination of squeezing the hell out of it and always driving the gun to the target.

[motosapiens]

regarding flinching, blinking, etc... I think lots of people struggle with this. I know I do. Things that help me are:

• to become more interested in where the sights are when the gun goes off (not when i start pulling trigger). The more you see of this process, the more you *want* to see it.
• shooting a few rounds into the berm, without a target to distract me, and looking for the muzzle flash or the ejecting brass in my peripheral vision.
• dryfire where I pay very close attention to my eyeballs and the tension level that comes with a flinch. I spend a few minutes every couple days just setting the timer and trying to pull the trigger before the beep ends, without disturbing the sights and without blinking or flinching. I set the par time for 5 seconds so I can recock the hammer, get set again, and do a 2nd trigger pull before I have to start the timer again.

[b1gcountry]

You can probably get away with that in matches where you only need one round per target. In USPSA I don't want to let the recoil take it's course.

I can get. 20-.23 splits pretty consistently without trying to compensate for recoil, but I haven't been able to (nor have I really tried to) reduce it from there.

I am curious how many people try to actively compensate for recoil, but that is probably a discussion for another thread. I'm sure it's in the archives somewhere.

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[Jake Di Vita]

I'd bet that everyone "tries" subconsciously to compensate for recoil at least a little, which is the primary reason I didn't like the snap cap drill you posted.

I can't think of a single shooter I know including myself that wouldn't have their muzzle dip if they were expecting the gun to go off but it didn't.

[FTDMFR]

I caught myself on video compensating for recoil very early on in my competitive shooting days (I pulled the trigger on a bad round and then dipped the gun A LOT), before I even knew the difference between flinching and compensating for recoil. I'd say it was something I started doing subconsciously; I wasn't knowledgeable enough at the time to try to do something like that consciously.

It's really interesting seeing it on video. It's not a sudden jerking motion like a flinch. It's more like a smooth, controlled rolling up and down motion.

Edited March 29, 2016 by FTDMFR

[CZinZA]

Thanks Jake & FTDMFR

I wonder if i do that. Perhaps I need to set up a test to find out.

My splits are pretty slow, though. I blame my crappy eyesight

Sent by Jedi mind control

Edited March 29, 2016 by CZinZA

[b1gcountry]

So Jake, do you even dip your gun in dry fire when you are pulling the trigger?

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[Jake Di Vita]

No, certainly not. You never want to simulate recoil in dryfire. I think if you are holding the gun tight and driving it into the targets, the compensation happens on it's own.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[b1gcountry]

I'm just curious how your brain keeps your dry fire mechanics separate from your live fire mechanics.

I honestly can't say what my hands do once they feel the gun recoil, but I've been having enough light strikes lately that I know I'm not dipping the gun

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[Jake Di Vita]

Yeah that's a great question. I'm inclined to think it is linked more towards the impulse of the recoil rather than programmed into my trigger control or mechanics through dryfire. If I'm doing my job right, everything in live fire is still the exact same until the hammer drops.

My take is the compensation for recoil is just the best way my body has found to apply the appropriate force required to get the sights back on target. With great mechanics and reasonable strength you redirect a good portion of the muzzle flip energy in recoil into your body and hopefully eventually the ground. You can't quite get it all though, the muzzle is always going to rise at least a tiny bit. Compensation is just that amount of force needed to get the sights back down from inevitable muzzle rise. Timing it to happen the instant the bullet leaves the gun gives you the earliest opportunity to see/align the sights for the next shot, but do it too early and you miss. Definitely a feel thing.

[BeerBaron]

I'd bet that everyone "tries" subconsciously to compensate for recoil at least a little, which is the primary reason I didn't like the snap cap drill you posted.

I can't think of a single shooter I know including myself that wouldn't have their muzzle dip if they were expecting the gun to go off but it didn't.

I tend to agree. when I first started shooting and would get an unexpected FTF (gun run dry, dead primer etc) the muzzle would move down after the trigger press and the peanut gallery would all go "oooh big flinch". now at that point it may have been,

What I've now noticed is even M and GM level shooters when they unexpectedly pull the trigger on an empty chamber there is fairly significant movement of the gun. It's either their response to recoil that didn't come, or they are expecting the shot to have left, they have observed sight picture/dot was good at the time they pulled the trigger and are already starting to transition to the next target. The thing is as you said the difference between a pre-trigger jerk and a post trigger 'reaction' is probably measured in hundredths of a second and impossible to judge with the naked eye.

it's a tough one.