Finding The Right Tempo

[CZ52GUY]

Yeah, I'm a new guy to BE but I've been shooting for a while. I hope I can pitch into the learning experience. By way of disclosure, my competition experience is most closely associated with IDPA, so some of my terminology may require translation to those shooting other formats.

Living in the Northeast, the practice facilities available are somewhat different during the Winter than the warm weather months. Difficult footing and heavy clothing tends to slow down the pace, but you can still get several rounds down range to stay as sharp as possible. The adversity of cold weather and heavy clothing can have some advantages, especially in keeping the mind sharp.

What I found however when the snow melted off the outdoor ranges, was that I had gotten into a "coasting rhythm". Hits were pretty good, I was attacking practice stages efficiently, but not aggressively. As a upper mid-tier shooter, I'd always admired the top shooters when I ran them as an RO, but found their pace to be FRANTIC, and didn't quite understand how they could mentally focus at that speed.

I had a mini-breakthrough last weekend. We've been doing some "Xtreme Practice", I'm sure quite tame for some of you, where practice courses are "over-engineered" outside of typical match fare, based on the philosophy that you practice real hard, you can compete easy. Engaging a threat behind a NS at 15 yds, the RO activated the Mover on first shot and I finally saw the Mover nearly in slow motion. My mind had gotten the jump on the Buzzer and sights on and trigger press was easy. It was a fairly narrow window to engage the Mover, because there was a 2nd threat with No Shoot in parallel. Engage the Mover too soon, shoot through penalty on No-Shoot, similarly if you wait too long. I was mentally ahead of the game so I was waiting on the Mover and got clean hits without penalties. I aggressively engaged the rest of the practice CoF with my mind leading instead of my eyes reacting, moving quickly on the outside and engaging targets rapidly, but surprisingly calm on the inside, giving the Master Shooter practice partner all he could handle (he still got me though :-)).

Lesson learned, it really is 90% mental once the basic shooting competency is achieved. I hope to build on that in the coming weeks and turn in better match results as well.

Safe Shooting,

CZ52'

[Flexmoney]

Nice post.

Welcome to the forum.

[CZ52GUY]

Nice post.

Welcome to the forum.

Thanks, although in 20-20 hindsight I think it is more accurate to say "divorcing the tempos" vs. divorcing mental from physical. Obviously, physical skill and clarity of the mind are both important and need to be leveraged in a positive way. It's easy to be stuck on one-speed, run-fast shoot-fast, shoot slower move-slower. Separating the tempo while still making mind and body work in tandem (almost like a dance)...that's what I'm after.

Safe shooting,

CZ52'

[Flexmoney]

I agree. And, I hate the words/mindset of tempo or cadence. With them, we can get into a pattern of thinking "how the shooting is supposed to go"...instead of allowing the creativity to happen.

[CZ52GUY]

I agree. And, I hate the words/mindset of tempo or cadence. With them, we can get into a pattern of thinking "how the shooting is supposed to go"...instead of allowing the creativity to happen.

I'm curious what you like for appropriate terminology. I often struggle with the right vowels and consonants to string together to appropriately express the concepts I'm encountering as I continue on this journey that I expect will never really end.

Thanks,

CZ52'

[Flexmoney]

Oh...I think you communicated the thought pretty well. It can be tough putting thoughts into words...especially when some words have different meanings to different people.

For me, cadence and tempo, with regards to shooting, can often mean that we go into a course of fire being rigid.

An exaggerated view of this would be the bullseye shooter who has trouble "shooting faster" when he comes to the shooting sports with more action. Or, at the other end, the speedy shooter that has trouble with accuracy.

[CZ52GUY]

Oh...I think you communicated the thought pretty well. It can be tough putting thoughts into words...especially when some words have different meanings to different people.

For me, cadence and tempo, with regards to shooting, can often mean that we go into a course of fire being rigid.

An exaggerated view of this would be the bullseye shooter who has trouble "shooting faster" when he comes to the shooting sports with more action. Or, at the other end, the speedy shooter that has trouble with accuracy.

I think I understand what you mean...it can be too "scripted"...and when it doesn't go according to plan, it can be tough to improvise if you aren't comfortable with the concept. I read an article by a real deal operator that talked about "solving one problem at a time". To some extent, I think that can be applied to competition stages also. Take advantage of the walk-through if available, have a high level plan of how you want to tackle the stage, but don't be so stuck on "the plan" to every detail that you can't improvise when you need to. Murphy is often an uninvited guest to a CoF...need to be ready to deal with him too :-).

Safe shooting,

CZ52'

[Round_Gun_Shooter]

This seems to ring of my major problem. How to move my shooting faster to a new level. My accuracy is on but my speed has not been better.

Not being fleet of foot, I am working now on trigger speed and transitions. I hope to shoot CZ52s course of fire in the near future to try out my practice and see if it is working.

Thanks for posting, you both have been helpful.

Regards,

[CZ52GUY]

This seems to ring of my major problem. How to move my shooting faster to a new level. My accuracy is on but my speed has not been better.

Not being fleet of foot, I am working now on trigger speed and transitions. I hope to shoot CZ52s course of fire in the near future to try out my practice and see if it is working.

Thanks for posting, you both have been helpful.

Regards,

Hey Buddy,

I expect we can find a way to accommodate you running through one of our "Xtreme" courses next visit . I have found that for me, trigger speed and target transitions are based both on "belief", and reaction and adjustment.

Trigger speed for me is primarily belief. If I believe I can make the shot, I can reliably get splits in the .18-.20 range 7yds and in...low .2's out to 10 yards depending on how much down-zero is visible and how awkward the body angle is depending on cover used. It's beyond 10yds and/or body position that can slow my splits as the targets move further back. Adjustment comes in when I feel awkward recoil, or a trigger reset that didn't seem to happen normally. Doesn't happen often as a % of shots overall, but reliably at least a couple times during a practice session and I'm trying to make peace with the idea and just deal with it.

Target to target transitions are improving for me as my "pointing skills" improve. One advantage of cold weather and a fairly limited indoor season, is that I can focus on dry-fire and get into a decent routine. Some extended draw, rapid-reload, and simple pointing exercises over last winter seemed to have helped. Over time I've gotten better "calibrated" as to the various distances between targets routinely encountered.

The other factor for me with target transitions is to remove as much of the "dwelling phenomenon" from my game as possible for shot 1 on any given target. Draw practice, pointing practice, and positive reinforcement during live-fire practice have given me confidence in the sight picture I see, and the mental awareness to go ahead and press the trigger when sights on is verified.

I have miles to go before I would be anywhere near the top shooters, but I feel the progress and I'm working hard to mentally capture the "good stuff", so I recognize it during the course of fire. I'm also trying to make peace with the idea that sometimes "stuff happens", and work on improving my reaction time to employ remedial action as may be necessary.

All I can say is that it's coming along, and it feels good to be making progress.

Safe Shooting,

CZ52'