How Long Did it Take You to Master Brian's "Exercise 1"?

[LHshooter]

I'm 60 and I've been shooting local IDPA and USPSA matches for a couple years (SS in ESP, SSP, BUG; C Class in Limited and CO). I'm accurate (90%+ points in matches) but slow. I've finally decided to get serious about improving and shooting faster and am now implementing a dry fire program I hope I will stick with, (I know, what has taken me so long), and getting some live fire practice drills that make sense.

 

I got out Brian's book again, and more of it makes more sense now than when I first read it when I started shooting matches. In the Development section I started with Exercise 1 where you line up the sights on a wall, lower your hands, close your eyes, and remount the gun to see if the sights are still aligned. Usually the front sight is a little low and a little left (at the bottom of the notch or just slightly below, and at the left side of the notch). I've spent a lot of time adjusting my feet, relaxing my arms, fine tuning my grip, etc, but it comes up the same. Nothing I seem to do makes any difference and it's very frustrating. Brian said he can't tell how long it will take to master each exercise, but I'm not sure I'll ever get off Exercise 1. He says not to move on to the others until you master each preceding exercise, but after a while I couldn't resist. I do Exercise 2 as well as 1 and I can keep my index pretty damn good when I rotate left or right with my eyes closed. But, I want to proceed in the right order but can't seem to correct my front sight to where it is lined up in the notch almost perfectly every time.

 

How long did it take you to perfect this Exercise? Did you anything specific to correct your misalignment?

 

It sucks getting old and being frustrated.

[HoMiE]

I’m still trying to perfect it or get better everyday. When he says do not move on until you master it, to me it means don’t go into to next exercise until you learn something that sticks with what it’s trying to teach. As you progress, you can always go back and refine each exercise a little bit at a time. You don’t sharpen an axe once and forget about it, you have to constantly sharpen it. Sometimes the best thing do when frustration comes is take a break and come back to it from another perspective. 

[B585]

5 hours ago, HoMiE said:

I’m still trying to perfect it or get better everyday. When he says do not move on until you master it, to me it means don’t go into to next exercise until you learn something that sticks with what it’s trying to teach. As you progress, you can always go back and refine each exercise a little bit at a time. You don’t sharpen an axe once and forget about it, you have to constantly sharpen it. Sometimes the best thing do when frustration comes is take a break and come back to it from another perspective. 

What he said.  It the beginning I spent way too much time trying to perfect my grip and not enough time on other important skills.  I still am working on my grip, but I do practice many other skills too.

[kmanick]

I just did this drill for the first time yesterday, really exposed some issues. I switched from  Production  to CO and I didn't  realize 1/2 the time when I transition I'm staring at the dot and trying to move it to the next target instead of snapping my eyes to the target and bringing the dot up to it.

kind of humbling   Got this week off , hopefully the weather will cooperate and I can run this dril a few days in a row.

I'm surprised I'm shooting steel challenge as well as I am , this should get me up to another level.