Max Michel Says

[Sterling White]

I agree with Max's statement.

Once you have the basics then jump into the fast lane and see what it feels like. For example, new race car drivers jump on the track, get on the gas, and start learning. Potential newcomers wanting to join Max's team have the basic of shooting behind them.

[Bigbadaboom]

So, what you're saying is that there is no hope for us INTJ's - at least in the speed games?

We have plenty going for us. Lance Armstrong is an INTJ.

Edited February 16, 2006 by Bigbadaboom

[John Dunn]

Blasphemy. He obviously weighs the same as a duck. Burn him!

[GeorgeInNePa]

Blasphemy. He obviously weighs the same as a duck. Burn him!

Build a bridge out of 'im!

[Ron Ankeny]

Once again Brian nails it. So what's new?

I could be wrong, but I think Max is saying something more along the lines of "it's easier to teach an great athlete to be a good marksman, than a great marksman to be an good athlete".

That's probably a pretty close assessment.

talent is NOT a pre-requisite to success

I agree unless carried to the absurd. But the whole notion of anyone can be a World Champion IPSC shooter is just so flawed on so many levels.

[Jake Di Vita]

Anyone that is not seriously physically or mentally disabled can be a world champion IPSC shooter.

I started with no talent, no money (to which I still have no money), no gun, no time, and no idea of what to do...only a burning need to do it.

[blackdragon]

It is what is between the ears that matters, That can't be taught! Thats why we spend our time here looking for more information!

Ivan

[PistolPete]

What's funny is that I read that article and have given it a ton of thought. It definately makes sense with what he is saying. I took it in the way that he feels it is quicker to teach someone who is fast to shoot more accurately than someone who shoots accurately but slowly. I think the end results will be similiar but the faster person would prob. achieve them sooner.

Pete

[shred]

Anyone that is not seriously physically or mentally disabled can be a world champion IPSC shooter.

I started with no talent, no money (to which I still have no money), no gun, no time, and no idea of what to do...only a burning need to do it.

I have to agree with Jake. The top shooters in this sport are very good, and have considerable talent, but they aren't supermen. If I can run with 'em occasionally, then there's living proof it doesn't take an olympian to make it. Me, a mid 30's ex-heart patient that never got above JV in high school sports and can't get to the range but once a week.. if I'm lucky.

Tying this back into the olympics for a second, I heard a Biathlon coach say that it's much easier to teach a good skier to shoot than a good shooter to ski. Can it work the other way around? Sure. Easier? No.

[caspian38]

Its easier to slow down ! than speed up... its simple physics.

Edited February 22, 2006 by caspian38

[Matt Cheely]

38, How so? As long as you are speeding up or slowing down the same amount, shouldn't it be equal?

And I don't think that Max is saying anything about physical ability to run a 50m dash. It's all in how fast and precisly you can move your hands.

[Jake Di Vita]

Yeah, I'd be interested to know the "simple physics" as well. Because testing actually shows the opposite of your theory for most people.

[Steve Moneypenny]

please explain simple "fizics" to this lowley hick. because i can't seem to see how that quote makes any sence. unless you speak of kenetic energy, wind resistance, effetcs of gravity... none of which have a relative meaning to practical shooting.

[Ron Ankeny]

Anyone that is not seriously physically or mentally disabled can be a world champion IPSC shooter.

I suppose it's nice to hold such beliefs as far as the mental aspects of the game, but it flies in the face of some widely held scientific principles. FWIW, this is my favorite forum and I don't want to argue about it.

It's all in how fast and precisly you can move your hands.

To a large extent, that is controlled by the brain, how it functions, chemistry, building and maintaining pathways, etc. There comes a point where no matter how much you want it, your body isn't capable of providing what is needed. This can be especially true with vision and motor skills.

Edited February 22, 2006 by Ron Ankeny

[38superman]

I agree with Max.

When I first started, I was very proud of my marksmanship.

I would take as much time as I needed to get an alpha with every shot.

It didn't take long to see a pattern develop.

Lots of points and lots of time equals mediocre score.

When I made the change to limited, I started blazing through the stages without regard to points.

My strategy became "just get'em all on the paper as fast as you can".

Once I did that my scores shot up.

Now I constantly remind myself to slow down and get good hits but I find it hard to do.

I believe the best way to improve speed without sacrificing accuracy is to focus on the things we do between shots.

By that I mean work on movement from position to position. Fitness matters.

Looking back at the videos of my first match, I looked like a penguin running.

Work on draw times and reloads.

This has nothing to do with accuracy but does affect the bottom line.

Tls

[CenTX]

And I don't think that Max is saying anything about physical ability to run a 50m dash. It's all in how fast and precisly you can move your hands.

I think it is Fast Feet that are needed rather than Fast Hands. No 50 yard dash, but moving fast from shooting position to shooting position.

Fast movement can be deceptive. When you are smooth and fast it does not feel as fast as frantic motion.

[caspian38]

Its easier to slow down ! than speed up... its simple physics.

Its eaiser to stop typing than explain.

[BigHamp]

I will not attempt to respond for SSG Michel, but we have had a number of conversations about this topic and I will attempt to shed some light on this issue. When we talk about speed we are referring to gun speed or shooting speed. SSG Michel can shoot accurately faster than I can physically pull the trigger. I can not shoot into a berm as fast as he can shoot into an A zone, we have tested this. It is not that he is a physiological wonder like Lance Armstrong, I'll explain. I have a bulls eye shooting background. I have several hundred thousand rounds of precision shooting under my belt. Because of this I "feel" the gun differently than an action pistol shooter. It is very difficult for me to squeeze past any sight abnormalities. I can train myself to get past this, but it will take a lot of time. If a shooter starts with accuracy in mind he is going to achieve that goal, however in the long run it will equal being slower. Speed can almost always be increased to a competive level the time constraint is the limiting factor.

The fact is the acceptable level of accuracy required for USPSA is less than that required for bulls eye. So it stands to reason that less time is needed to insure the sight picture is acceptable. Once that is ingrained it takes a lot of time to override that training and change. So accuracy is easier to train than speed.

Really, just my $0.01

[Flexmoney]

BigHamp, thanks for posting and clarifying. That goes a long way to explainging the thought process.

It seems to correspond to what we see posted around here often. It is usually the shooters that have a background in accuracy based compeitition that have a hard time getting a handle on "speed". And, there seem to be a lot of athletic based competitors that struggle with the accuracy.

[spook]

Great post Big Hamp.

So, in your opinion, it's more of a mental thing than a physical thing?

[KevinB]

For what it’s worth in the speed discussion, I lived within 150 miles of Rio Salado for about a year in 2004 so I got to the range a few times and watched some of the top talent shoot. Now of course a ton of folks who have lived there longer can dispute this or have different perceptions, but I didn’t perceive Leatham to be that fast on his feet. What I did notice was that (when I was watching anyway) he never seemed to stop shooting. Whereas a person faster on their feet would run up to a window or array and hose the targets from 10 yards, Leatham would immediately begin firing at them from wherever he was as long as they were visible. Sometimes that translated into shooting on the move from long distances, but since no one can run faster than a bullet it sure cut out any foot speed advantage.

Since I’m not particularly fast, I was really inspired by that technique. If you (like me) aren’t a fast runner, being comfortable shooting on the move out to 20-25 yards can level the field. Also, as I age that technique keeps me in the game longer!

[Paladin]

its always easier holding on than letting go in every (most) things in life, it is just a human thing....

if you know a shooter who knows how to let it go (speed) then teaching him to hold on is going to be a whole lot easier...

I never really started developing speed until I forced myself into just buring shots into the berm.. the feeling of loss of control and not being sure of the results in this type of shooting was a huge hurdle to overcome...

[benos]

its always easier holding on than letting go in every (most) things in life, it is just a human thing....

if you know a shooter who knows how to let it go (speed) then teaching him to hold on is going to be a whole lot easier...

I never really started developing speed until I forced myself into just buring shots into the berm.. the feeling of loss of control and not being sure of the results in this type of shooting was a huge hurdle to overcome...

+3 (all three paragraphs)

I came from a PPC background, where accuracy is the bottom line. When I started shooting IPSC, I still naturally shot for maximum points, but my temperament had enough flexibility so I was able to shoot fairly quickly by "shooting sight pictures somewhere in the A box." I said "fairly quickly," because "back then" the sport didn't have the raw speedsters that it does today. Robbie always shot faster than me, but over the course of the match, if I won, it was because he'd bomb too many stages. (Or at least seriously bomb one.) But as the years went by and he learned to consistently shoot 95+% the points, I had to learn to shoot faster and still keep my customary high level of points. Which I did by forcing myself to just "burn rounds at the target" - while not caring whether or not if I even hit the target.

I can still remember the "feeling behind what I saw," like it just happened yesterday, when I shot my fastest Bill Drill to date (a clean 1.48). My goal or intention was to just crank hits anywhere in the target as fast as I could possibly shoot the shots. The sights just went zipping onto the target and stopped right in the middle, and the front sight whipped up and down like I was cracking a whip to the exact same place every time. It was unbelievable. Rob and I looked at each other like god had just appeared.

It took a huge effort to let go enough for that to happen. And the experience changed how I thought about speed shooting from then on.

be

[JD45]

Benos,

Please write another book. The Bill drill story says so much it is scary.

[Radical Precision Designs]

its always easier holding on than letting go in every (most) things in life, it is just a human thing....

if you know a shooter who knows how to let it go (speed) then teaching him to hold on is going to be a whole lot easier...

I never really started developing speed until I forced myself into just buring shots into the berm.. the feeling of loss of control and not being sure of the results in this type of shooting was a huge hurdle to overcome...

+3 (all three paragraphs)

I came from a PPC background, where accuracy is the bottom line. When I started shooting IPSC, I still naturally shot for maximum points, but my temperament had enough flexibility so I was able to shoot fairly quickly by "shooting sight pictures somewhere in the A box." I said "fairly quickly," because "back then" the sport didn't have the raw speedsters that it does today. Robbie always shot faster than me, but over the course of the match, if I won, it was because he'd bomb too many stages. (Or at least seriously bomb one.) But as the years went by and he learned to consistently shoot 95+% the points, I had to learn to shoot faster and still keep my customary high level of points. Which I did by forcing myself to just "burn rounds at the target" - while not caring whether or not if I even hit the target.

I can still remember the "feeling behind what I saw," like it just happened yesterday, when I shot my fastest Bill Drill to date (a clean 1.48). My goal or intention was to just crank hits anywhere in the target as fast as I could possibly shoot the shots. The sights just went zipping onto the target and stopped right in the middle, and the front sight whipped up and down like I was cracking a whip to the exact same place every time. It was unbelievable. Rob and I looked at each other like god had just appeared.

It took a huge effort to let go enough for that to happen. And the experience changed how I thought about speed shooting from then on.be

It seems that it is us who put limits to our abilities or their potential. Max Michel is looking for raw innate "athletical" talent in "young individuals" that can be molded into "super-shooters"... if the training will take hold. "Natural" athletes do have certain "genetical" advantages that if correctly funneled can make it imposible for the average folk to beat them. This is a proven fact in today's "super athlete's world". For today's IPSC "carnival" style of shooting it is important to have many speed "attributes besides a fast trigger finger. But this is only if you want to be compettive in the upper performance circles. Otherwise, for the "common or impaired" folks there is rest of it. You could say that there are GRAND MASTERS and then there are grand masters. Just like there are models and then there are super-models.

That being said, as BEnos explains above, we ALL could be able to realize our own "epiphany" or eureka moment ... within our own "actual" physical restrictions, dictated by any physical impediments or unsurmountable mental inabilities.

There is a guy in our local club that has a "God-given" trigger finger that I couldn't start to believe I could match, ever. Yet in some timed drills (without trying to push it) I have shot faster and just as accurate. To the degree that if I tapped my finger as fast as I could the limiting factor would be my conscious act/effort of tapping the trigger, which sometimes would even lead to trigger finger freeze. But with "enlightened" practice such as BEnos explains above I have pulled that trigger with my surgery ladden atrhritic finger faster than my "natural talented" young friend. As for speed and accuracy? It's just as simple as coordinating the rythm between your eyes and your target, and letting your eyes squeeze the trigger. Practice at this coordination will get you to the level and rythm of "cracking that whip" at the point of impact. Speed? What is that? The need to get there from where you just left??!!

(Of course my young friend probably soon will become a Grand Master, where my artificial left knee and my busted right knee won't carry me ... but I'm having fun! )

Edited March 7, 2006 by Radical Precision Designs