Entry and exits

[Onepocket]

Hard and soft entry and exits. Does anyone follow a hard clear cut rule on what leg to leave and enter on? Just curious  on others thoughts.

[pjb45]

I have heard multiple GMs talk about entry and exit.  I have watched a bunch of them.  Some say the same leg every time while others say which ever leg makes sense.

 

Good Luck

 

[59nolimit]

I am far from a pro but I was taught to launch with your leading leg and brake into position using trailing leg. I still need to do alot of work on this but when done correctly it can save lots of valuable time on the clock. 

[DKnoch]

On exit i push off with the rear leg, because that's what I learned playing football growing up.  Right or wrong, i dont know.  Probably more of a preference thing.   What leg would you push off with if you were going to sprint or run?  Whichever leg that is, just use that.  Or try it on the clock in practice, probably wont make a huge difference, as long as you exit quick and with authority

[DKnoch]

And as pjb said, it could be situationally dependant

[uewpew]

20 minutes ago, Onepocket said:

Hard and soft entry and exits. Does anyone follow a hard clear cut rule on what leg to leave and enter on? Just curious  on others thoughts.

For hard exits:  what i've seen and do is drive with what ever foot is opposite the direction i intend to move.  Check out Max Michel vids.  

For hard entry:  haven't found a clear cut rule yet.  I just try to stop with my feet in a position that allows me to transition from target to target without having to re-adjust them.

[Jake Di Vita]

For hard entry, the way I've always taught it (Which I originally learned from Max and Travis) is the following steps if I'm moving right to left into a shooting box:

1- Right foot turns toward the target and sets down just BEFORE the box.

2- Left foot goes to the far side of the box and ends up in final position all while extending gun to target and getting on the sights.

3- As sight picture improves I pick up right foot to place into box (only a 6 inch lateral movement or so) trying to keep the rest of my body still. If executed well you can fire a very precise shot the instant you set your right foot down. If executed perfectly you can fire a very precise shot the instant you pick your right foot up.

Edited August 30, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[Onepocket]

Thanks Jake, great insight as always. That is pretty much the same way I was taught. Do you ever lean/fall out of position crossing over a leg or do you always push out with the back leg never taking a cross over step. 

[Jake Di Vita]

12 minutes ago, Onepocket said:

Thanks Jake, great insight as always. That is pretty much the same way I was taught. Do you ever lean/fall out of position crossing over a leg or do you always push out with the back leg never taking a cross over step. 

My pleasure.

I use falling out of position as my easy target exit and I use the back leg dropstep as my hard target exit.

[Onepocket]

Ok I'm on board with that. How about going forward. I have that small kickback step that I am trying to get rid of. I have seen Vogel and a few others do it on video.  Jake, with all the books on competitive shooting I have never seen anything on movement.  It seems to me that that is 90% of the time. Any other time savers? 

[Jake Di Vita]

I use the same methods for forward movement.

Why are your trying to get rid of the dropstep for forward movement? Sure there are certainly other time savers, but not any that I can think of that are universally applicable. A big part of being efficient is recognizing what you can get away with on each range surface.

[Onepocket]

The guy that taught me says it's wasted movement and cost time?  

[Jake Di Vita]

I'd like to hear his reasons for believing that. Doesn't make much sense to me that it's an efficient way to move left or right after a hard shot but not forward. What does he recommend doing instead of that for moving forward after a shot that requires a good amount of precision?

Edited August 31, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[Onepocket]

No he does not want you taking the back step to go any direction. Just wants you to kick off . 

Edited August 31, 2016 by Onepocket

[Onepocket]

I need to learn to do it like this

[Jake Di Vita]

Well in my case I've put the timer on both ways and I'm consistently and obviously faster by drop stepping (and the harder the lean, the more the advantage).....perhaps he is faster with just kicking off. Everyone really needs to try everything for themselves on the timer to see what works best for them.

Eric leaving that first position is mostly easy exit I think. I don't think he would have started leaning early if that last target was a partial, but who knows with him. It's hard for me to use Eric as an example of what to do in the same way that you can't tell a basketball player to just do it like Michael Jordan. Eric has certainly found what works best for him, most of what he does would not work for me the same way.

Edited August 31, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[Onepocket]

Do you think the better you get the more you can get away with?  What would be a hard exit for some would be an easy one for others.

[BenBreeg]

It may not be so straightforward as to apply one answer to all situations.  You need the center of mass forward of your propulsion foot, so you can either drop a foot to accomplish that or keep the trailing foot stationary while the COM moves out front.  It will depend on your body position when you decide to explode which technique to use IMO.  Most coaches in other sports avoid the drop step (or false step) assuming it is a time-waster.  Here is a good post showing that that may not be the case (although this is applied to a specific scenario).

http://training-conditioning.com/2009/10/19/false_step_acceleration_friend_or_foe/index.php

[SCTaylor]

OnePocket - In Stoeger's dryfire book it is simply defined as: Easy Exit - open targets, Hard Exit - Partial targets.

 

I'm an unclassified grabastic piece of USPSA shooter, so take it for what you want.

[Onepocket]

22 minutes ago, BenBreeg said:

It may not be so straightforward as to apply one answer to all situations.  You need the center of mass forward of your propulsion foot, so you can either drop a foot to accomplish that or keep the trailing foot stationary while the COM moves out front.  It will depend on your body position when you decide to explode which technique to use IMO.  Most coaches in other sports avoid the drop step (or false step) assuming it is a time-waster.  Here is a good post showing that that may not be the case (although this is applied to a specific scenario).

http://training-conditioning.com/2009/10/19/false_step_acceleration_friend_or_foe/index.php

That's a great article thanks. 

[Jake Di Vita]

2 hours ago, Onepocket said:

Do you think the better you get the more you can get away with?  What would be a hard exit for some would be an easy one for others.

Yeah absolutely. I think the best way of illustrating this is a full target at varying distances. A skilled shooter may be able to fall out of the position on a 15 yard open target, while a lesser skilled shooter may experience adverse effects falling out of position on anything further than 7 yards. As far as partials go, I'm rarely going to fall out of position on that if it's further away than 5 yards or so. As with everything it depends on the target you are shooting.

2 hours ago, BenBreeg said:

It may not be so straightforward as to apply one answer to all situations.  You need the center of mass forward of your propulsion foot, so you can either drop a foot to accomplish that or keep the trailing foot stationary while the COM moves out front.  It will depend on your body position when you decide to explode which technique to use IMO.  Most coaches in other sports avoid the drop step (or false step) assuming it is a time-waster.  Here is a good post showing that that may not be the case (although this is applied to a specific scenario).

http://training-conditioning.com/2009/10/19/false_step_acceleration_friend_or_foe/index.php

I think that's good stuff. A way this applies to our shooting that isn't talked about in the article is heavy leans around a barrier where your center of mass is very clearly on the opposite side of where you want to go. In this case a drop step is about the only way of getting gravity working in your favor for good acceleration. In this case, the target difficulty isn't the deciding factor....the difficulty of the shooting position is.

Edited August 31, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[CHA-LEE]

If I have the latitude to define my stance how I want to in a shooting position (basically not being restricted by a narrow shooting position or hard lean around something) I prefer to use the Trailing leg as the primary deceleration and acceleration force into and out of the position. If my trailing leg foot is within the width of my shoulder on the same side (Due to a shooting area limitation or hard lean) then I will deploy a drop step on the trailing leg to exit the the position aggressively. 

Some shooters prefer to enter the shooting position with the primary breaking force happening with their leading foot then easing their trailing foot into the shooting position. Jake D, Max M, Travis T, and Robert V prefer this method and probably more. The video above of Eric G shows him leveraging the trailing leg for most of his exits and entries. So I don't think its a matter of one method being "Better" than the other but more so a style that you prefer to use. 

I have put a lot of testing effort into each method for my style of shooting/movement and the trailing leg method suits me better. Test each method and pick one that allows you to accelerate out of the position as quickly as possible and also preserve your shooting platform as you enter the next shooting position so you can shoot as soon as possible. A shot timer is required to truly measure the effectiveness of one method over another. That and you need to be able to deploy and perform both methods effectively when its required.

[AWLAZS]

Lets see the red shoe video

[Jake Di Vita]

5 hours ago, AWLAZS said:

Lets see the red shoe video

Lol. That experiment was put to rest long ago. I'm pretty sure the video is still on my youtube channel.

[target4fun]

Great stuff.  A new thing to practice and test on a timer.  I agree test both and see what works best for you.  As both can be done and achieve success.