Anderson Book

[Clay1]

In the opening few pages of the book Steve Anderson speaks about his heavy training for a match where he practices for 45 mins in the morning and then again at night on certain days etc.

For a C class shooter trying to get into B, is everyone doing 1 1/2 hours of this stuff a day? Yes, I know - if it were easy everyone would be a master class shooter. I am willing to do more work than the average Joe, I just don't know if I can truly and regularly maintain a 1 1/2 hours a day.

Today I did about 45 mins and that seemed like a looong time to me.

The other question do you work on drills 1-14 during every practice or do you just do certain ones on certain days? I did the 45 mins just on drills 1-7. I will probably go through the drills faster the more that I do them.

Rick

[Steve Anderson]

Rick,

I get this question a lot.

In the beginning, when you are looking for rapid improvement, doing 1-12 daily will cement your basic skills very well.

I would recommend 1-12 every day (even if you don't do all the reps) then alternate between the match skills and the plate rack drills every other day after the classifier skills. This is basically what I do now, and works well.

If you want to see amazing, earth shattering improvement...do it all twice a day.

SA

[Clay1]

Rick,

I get this question a lot.

In the beginning, when you are looking for rapid improvement, doing 1-12 daily will cement your basic skills very well.

I would recommend 1-12 every day (even if you don't do all the reps) then alternate between the match skills and the plate rack drills every other day after the classifier skills. This is basically what I do now, and works well.

If you want to see amazing, earth shattering improvement...do it all twice a day.

SA

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks Steve; since you put it that way I had better plan for "Earth Shattering Improvement" and if something comes up fall back on "rapid improvement".

Rick

[jessej]

Or you can do what i do and drink some whisky while dry firing. It makes the time go by faster. Not to mention, you can achieve some incredible break throughs.

[GuildSF4]

Unfortunately for me I can only do the these about 3 times per week due to my work schedule. 12 hr days...

[Putty]

Or you can do what i do and drink some whisky while dry firing.  It makes the time go by faster.  Not to mention, you can achieve some incredible break throughs. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I will try some peyote buttons during dry fire practice and break on through to the other side

[Clay1]

last week average was 11.6 hrs / day. I'm doing drill 8 now. Have to do less keyboard time and more trigger time. Gotta go.

[MattBurkett]

Hey Steve, I thought 12 hours a day of work leaves 12 hours a day to practice, doesn't it?

[Steve Anderson]

Yep. Just got done myself and had a cool grip breakthrough on the XD.

SA

[EricW]

It's really tough to:

(1) Have the discipline to work on dryfire as much as you need to

and

(2) Having the cajones to tell people that demand your time that this is your practice time and to just stick a cork in it until you're done doing what you're doing.

More difficult than (1) or (2) is convincing people that doing (1) and (2) is a zillion times more important than having a fancy gun to do it with. Dare I say it seems impossible some days...

Off to practice...without scooping...

[mcoliver]

When I started this sport back in 2001 I dry fired the heck out of my glock and 1911. Spent close to 4 or so hrs a day doing stuff I see in matches at home.

The last time I remember putting the same amount of time on dry fire was last Dec '04. That was when I first handled a friend's CZ and offered me to shoot it in the coming weekend's match. Boy did I get nasty blisters in my trigger finger working that DA trigger.

Now, weak in spirit, I only think about doing dry fire drills, mostly in the morning when I wake up....then I go back to sleep (hopefully, to strengthen that spirit up).

When starting out, learning and working on new movements/skills, breaking in that new gun, holster or underwear, dry fire is a tremendous help. And there's always time for dry fire...even in the comfort room.

[Clay1]

I'm doing the drills today on multiple targets - which I have never done multiple target dry fire drills before and all of a sudden I am doing the Kevin Elpers finger jump. Matt in Number 7 where you tell him that he is pointing his finger out between trigger pulls - I was doing that. Never noticed that in live fire. Worked on feeling the trigger reset after that knock upside the head revelation.

I'm seeing other little things that I do with the pistol that I would never notice in live fire.

When working on one of the drills - can't remember the number but you draw with your strong hand, switch the gun over to the weak hand and then do a reload - do you drop that mag with the left trigger finger and reach across with your right hand for the mag and insert it?

Bluntly in a recent match when I had to do this exact drill I switched back strong hand for the reload. Should have been doing that drill weeks ago.

Rick

[Steve Anderson]

You do the reload normally, THEN you switch to the left hand. Much simpler.

SA

[alma]

When working on one of the drills - can't remember the number but you draw with your strong hand, switch the gun over to the weak hand and then do a reload - do you drop that mag with the left trigger finger and reach across  with your right hand for the mag and insert it? 

Bluntly in a recent match when I had to do this exact drill I switched back strong hand for the reload.  Should have been doing that drill weeks ago.

Rick

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You should not see a stage like this in a USPSA sanctioned match. All of the stages that I have seen that require a reload plus strong and week handed shooting have you go freestyle, then reload, then strong (or weak) hand.

I think that after stipulating strong (or weak) hand only, a reload cannot be required because the other limb is suppose to be incapacitated.

[GuildSF4]

Hey Steve, I thought 12 hours a day of work leaves 12 hours a day to practice, doesn't it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, who needs sleep, or food anyway!

(or exercise...)

[Ben Stoeger]

Rick,

After 7 months on the SA plan (with my own twists on it) I have accomplished a couple things:

1. Beaten the crap out of my practice gun

2. Gained 10 lbs of muscle mass

3. Become a better shooter.

4. Suffered all sorts of minor cuts and stubbed toes from "practice accidents"

Stick with it, with time and patience you will start to wear your guns out.