Practical Shooting, Beyond Fundamentals

[Genghis]

I'm going through Brian's book right now, and trying to figure out how to implement his method. But as a budding C-class shooter, I'm trying to figure out how to get from where I am now to the place his book describes.

BTW, I've read With Winning In Mind and Perfect Practice, and they all fit together very well, although each focuses on a different aspect of shooting. PP focuses on the specific details of practice. WWIM concentrates on the winning attitude. PSBF talks a lot about what your brain should be doing (and should not be doing) when you shoot. The similarities are amazing. I guess they've all figured out how to win and come to many of the same conclusions.

I think I understand most of the details of what Brian describes, but that's a lot different from being able to do it. Kind of like hearing Tiger Woods tell how to hit a golf ball - you aren't going to step onto the course and hang with him.

For example, Brian talks about watching the front sight in recoil, and also about trigger control (two of my foci right now). But he also says that conscious thought is counterproductive. The way I relate this to what I'm doing is:

1. I need to experience the things he describes, such as watching the front sight in recoil. This may at first require conscious thought and concentration, which may detract from performance.

2. With practice these things will become automatic, and I'll be able to do things more as he describes. The good habits developed earlier will make it easier to look at the big picture as I shoot.

At times I've tried to concentrate on one or two things. For the first few matches I worried about the 180 and reminded myself to take the safety off. Since then I've reminded myself of various things such as prepping the trigger or watching the front sight. Is this the best I can do at this stage of my shooting?

I know I need to practice and dryfire more, so more of my learning takes place outside matches.

Am I on the right track here?

Sean

[XRe]

Sounds like you're headed in the right direction. My experience with the things that Brian talks about in his book is that I had to experience them before I really "got it" - reading about them helped me recognize those things when they happened, and gave me clues about what things I might experience along the way.

I found that I had to learn about awareness and focus, and then how to shoot in present tense without conscious control before I experienced many of the other things that Brian talks about - including consistent awareness of my sights.

I can still remember the first time I became *really* aware, before I learned how to focus on the specific task. I was shooting an indoor, weeknight match, and became fascinated that I could hear every spent case bounce across the floor, hear my footfalls, hear the RO behind me, and I could see everything on the range at once. Way cool - I also learned to turn off my ProEars before shooting to reduce the aural stimuli

[BritinUSA]

I think that you are right where you should be... There are several phases that we all went through when starting this sport.

1. Concentrate on everything; Safety on and off, focus on front sight, what the 180, reload here, move around this wall... etc.

2. Concentrate on one thing; ie. prepping the trigger or watching the front sight.

As we become more accustomed to the 'day to day' actions of shooting the concentration becomes AWARENESS, we do not focus on any one thing (by focus I mean with the mind not the eyes).

An analogy; The first time you learned to walk or climb the stairs or drive a car, there were dozens of different things to take into account. Now that you are accomplished in these things, you give them no conscious thought. You don't consciously use the turn signals, you don't even think about it. You change gear when you need to but you don't think about it.

In these first few months of shooting it is necessary to concentrate fully on everything you do until you reach that level where you can push each particular item/action to the sub-conscious and focus on something else. In this way more and more aspects of shooting will be pushed into the sub-conscious until there is nothing for the conscious to focus on, then you will be a GM.

It's less complicated than it sounds, in fact it's incredibly simple... The clever part was figuring all this out in the first place, and the first place was BRIAN ENOS.

[Genghis]

Britin USA -

I think Brian used a similar analogy, that of writing. When you started you had to concentrate on each part of each letter. Now you just sit down and record your thoughts more or less directly.

I think I've shot in 24 matches this year, and I want to make sure I'm practicing perfectly and not cementing any bad habits.

[wsimpso1]

I already had a background in High Power (off-and-on since the early 1980's). In 1983, I spent an afternoon listening to an Olympic Gold Medalist named Lanny Basham talk about Mental Management. Bought the tapes of that lecture and still have 'em. "With Winning in Mind" sure sounded familiar when I read it.

Anyway, I bought Brian's book a year ago spring when I decided to play this practical pistol stuff. Read it then and thought "Wow! This guy understands his shooting and trusts a well prepared mind to uncover the important stuff." Then I wondered if I could ever get to the point of actually using his stuff.

This summer I blazed through the book again and lately have had the wonderful thing happen of things smoothing out and going faster while feeling slower. In the last six weeks I actually started tracking the sights and seeing them come right back to the target for repeats and go right to the next target on transitions. Now here is the important part. I did not conciously try to do these things. I knew that I wanted to do those things, and that is important, but it was my subconcious that drove things while my concious mind was on the lookout for the inputs. As I bacame more practiced at figuring out how I would shoot a stage and then memorizing it, the concious mind became freed up to observe. It is happening! And it is so cool that I can not help telling people about it! Calling shots is now easy. All those years in High Power and my calls were never very good, but now, wow!

So my advice, based upon my just getting to the point where the inner game can start to work, is to stay on it, practice fundementals and basic drills, and keep the mind open. In time you will train the mind to see faster and train the muscles to do what you need and then the mental game can really begin to take over.

Billski

[Genghis]

I think the ideas in the book will direct my growth, but at the same time I want to practice perfection. At this point I sometimes remind myself of one or two aspects of my shooting, right before practicing or shooting a stage.

I have a background in instructing, and rifle was my first love. I'd hazard a guess that I stack up well in terms of shooting slowly, but practical shooting is a whole different game.

wsimso1, your post gives me some encouragement!

[Loves2Shoot]

The quicker you remove fast and slow from your shooting mindset the better

In shooting there is just doing too much, enough and not enough

[benos]

Am I on the right track here?

Definitely.

There some great posts in this thread.

Like golf, we do very little "naturally." But over time, by training, we convert what initially feels awkward and requires thought into what feels natural (lack of effort). Whether you just pick up the pen and write or drive to where you are going - how you get there is the same. You must practice. (Said in an Arnold-like voice.)

be

[Genghis]

Thanks, Brian and Loves2shoot.